CHERUB: Endgame
by Lulu Bee
Summary: Anna and Emma return for the last time, but what happens from now on is final. If they screw up, they lose their Dad, and probably their Mum too. But if they don't, will they lose their life at CHERUB? So what will the results be for this endgame?
1. The Beginning of An End

so, here it is! the first chapter that has been (hopefully) long awaited. I'm posting this chapter today because it's my friends birthday today! so HAPPY BIRTHDAY LIZZY! she has a fanfiction account, which she set up maybe... four or five months ago (LizzyJane23) soo if any of you want to go and read one of her stories, you know =)

But anyway, Lizzy is one of my beeeeessstest friends, so I promised her I'd post the first chapter on her birthday, rather than some distant and vague time in the future. In other words, if it wasn't for Lizzy, you'd be waiting another few months before I got off my arse and actually posted something (yeah, im, unfortunately lazy. I blame genetics).

Anywho, birthday wishes aside, I've given you a nice, even longer than usual post to make up for being lazy, and here it is!

* * *

><p>Chapter 1~Anna<p>

"Admit it," Dan tutted, "you're lost,"

"No! I know exactly where we are!" I snapped waving the map at him.

"Oh yeah, where are we then?" Dan asked, raising an eyebrow questioningly.

"Somewhere here!" I exclaimed waving the map at him again then stabbing a random section of it.

Dan laughed, "Try holding the map the right way up, Anna. It might help a bit,"

I paused and looked at the map. "I knew it was upside down! I was just holding it the wrong way round because... Because I find things easier to read upside down."

Dan shook his head, took the map off me and studied it for a few minutes.

"The house is there," He told me, pointing to a part of the map that I hadn't crumpled to death over the last few days, "We're here," He said, pointing to a part of the map I _had _crumpled to death over the last few days, "So we only need to go a few more streets and then we'll be fine," He grinned up at me, "As long as you're not the one leading the way. I have never seen someone so_bad_ at reading maps before in my life!"

"So? I've never really felt any overwhelming urge to look at a map before. When have I ever needed to? I know how to get to a nearby supermarket and buy food, and the rest I can just make up as I go along," I replied sulkily.

"Come on, then. I want to get back reasonably soon and we're just wasting time standing around here," Dan complained.

"Right, because what exactly have we been doing all day?" I asked.

"Observing," Dan told me, grabbing my hand and pulling me along in the right direction.

"No, Dan, we were sitting on a park bench feeding stale bread to the ducks and eating ice cream. For three hours. My ice cream melted. All we saw was ducks," I complained.

"Well, all _you _saw was ducks, but I managed to actually get a look at our latest victim," Dan told me superiorly, his tone an edge mocking as he said the last word.

"Oh, yes, the guy with the bunny suit and penguin mask," I nodded, "Yeah, he wasn't our guy- he works part time over at that local shop by the park- it's called Bunny Buy or something bunny-ish- he was advertising. It's his job,"

"What? No! I was talking about the guy who was stomping around the park all in black with the long black over coat and black clothes and black hair and brown sunglasses! And how the heck did you know the bunny guy worked at a local shop and was advertising?"

"Ways and means, Dan, ways and means. And is it even possible to have brown sunglass lens type things?" I asked.

Dan shrugged as we turned and headed down another street, "I dunno. It kinda ruined the villainously evil look he had going, though,"

"True," I agreed, "His dark, mysterious look got screwed up too. Who knew? Maybe they don't have how-to-dress-like-an-evil-bad-guy-slash-maniac lessons at evil-people school."

We hurried across the road and into a narrow alley way. If it had been going-on-dark out on the streets, it was almost pitch black now that we were out of the way of all the lights. The alley stank of beer and rubbish and general not-nice smells. I could barely see Dan ahead of me.

"Christ. We're gonna have to stop with the late night shit, Dan," I muttered as I stubbed my toe and something went crashing to one side of the alley.

"This was _your _idea in the first place!" Dan exclaimed teasingly.

"Well I'm disowning it now! We needed it a few nights ago because a few nights ago we weren't getting anywhere!" I muttered, "Now we've got a couple of leads, we should drop it! Besides, I don't want to get picked up by the police. Two teenagers running around the streets in the middle of the night isn't exactly non-suspicious,"

"Well I'm not trailing all the way back across town now, only to come back tomorrow morning and find that the house is full of people," Dan said decidedly.

"Fine, fine! But you're gonna have to put up with me moaning for the rest of the night about my poor stubbed toes!" I hissed as we reached the end of the alleyway and found ourselves on a smaller side street which was all but deserted. Dan led the way carefully.

"You're pathetic, Anna- I didn't trip or stub my toe once in there," Dan told me.

"Shut up and stop drawing attention to us," I retorted crappily.

We carried on like this for another five minutes, until we found ourselves at a house on the end of the street. It was two storeys high with a small yet abused front garden full of weeds and a small little wall going around the outside. Dan and I opened the metal gate and made our way through the garden to the front door. I tried it quietly. Locked.

"The lights are all off- he's either not in or asleep," I noted.

"You should probably have checked _before _you tired the door!" Dan muttered back.

"We'll try the back door next," I decided, ignoring Dan.

We walked around to the back garden which was equally as abused and disused as the front one. Dan tried the door. It didn't open.

"Any plant pots or mats he could be hiding a key under?" I whispered anxiously. If we made too much noise, the neighbours would get suspicious eventually.

"Here," Dan stood up grinning as he produced a key, "It was taped under the window ledge,"

I sighed in relief. This was the third time in four nights we were sneaking into someone's house and both times previously we'd had to get in the hard way- climbing through unlocked windows that were luckily not so hard to open. I had bruises. I'm serious- falling in through a window _hurts_.

Dan unlocked the door and we darted inside, shutting the door carefully behind us. We slipped off our shoes and started double checking the rooms were empty. The shoe slipping thing? Trust me on it.

The first house we snuck into we left muddy footprints everywhere. All nice and dandy when you're trying to insult the owner of the house, but the aim of it was for them to never know we'd been there. Hence the taking off of our shoes. Besides- if we were creeping around bare foot, we made less noise. Kinda...

Dan and I finished checking the first floor and it was empty which meant- obviously- that if there was anyone in, they'd be upstairs or invisible ninja's. I was hoping for no one in or upstairs. There was no one upstairs.

"Ok, we're good." I told Dan, coming out of the last room, "There's no one around,"

Dan nodded, "I'll take downstairs and see you in ten minutes maximum, ok?"

I nodded and went back into the room, looking around for anything with a massive sign above saying in capital letters INFORMATION! CLUES! LOOK OVER HERE YOU MORON! So far? ... Nothing. I sighed and got to work.

The room I was in was evidentially some sort of playroom type thing. I knew the guy who lived here had two little kids, who were staying at their Mum's for the rest of the week, luckily enough. I doubted anything informationy would be hidden in any of the kid's rooms- they might get their hands on it and that wouldn't be good.

I moved on from the playroom, skipped out the two kid's bedrooms and found myself in an office room. I booted up the computer and started plugging in memory sticks to see what was on them.

While I waited for the computer to load, I looked through everything else in the room. The guy was obviously not keen on paperwork as there were about five pages in all lying around the office. Which was fine by me, since it was less to look through. Well... not really, if it was all on the computer.

Dan appeared in the doorway and saw me at the computer. He sighed, "He's another computer fanatic, isn't he?"

The second house we'd been in had been obsessed with computers. I hadn't had enough room on my memory stick to keep it all, and had ended up having to go through half the stuff there and then just to make enough space! Since then, I'd set up an online account thing where I had 'unlimited' space to save all my files.

"Uh huh, but it'll only take me a few minutes to sort it out. Do you mind searching his bedroom while I take care of this?" I asked as the log in screen came up and I was told to give a password.

"Fine," Dan sighed, heading off again.

Five minutes later, I'd logged off, found Dan and we were out the back of the house and locking it up.

"Well, that was a good night's work!" I said cheerfully.

"If you say so. Right now I'm tired and hungry. Let's head back," Dan sighed.

* * *

><p>Chapter 2~Anna<p>

It was exactly a week since Dan and I had done a runner and left CHERUB. A week of the two of us and –despite several honest, made-with-good-intention promises- no contact with anyone else. We'd had an idea yesterday, and put it into action, but we weren't expecting something immediate. So, that aside, no contact with the outside and/or real world. Well, apart from random people that we'd never met before in our lives. But the one minute conversations we had with them didn't really count.

Dan and I had set up our 'base' now. It was, in all honesty, a pile of crap. We'd found an old housing estate on the outskirts of Manchester –since that was where the main shit kept happening in our lives. The houses were due to be demolished, but that wasn't for about another month. In the mean time, most of them were empty. Only the occasional house owner was left, petitioning against the demolition.

The houses were a bit run down, but we still had electricity, so we could use my laptop whenever we wanted without worrying about running out of battery. There was a weak internet signal, which sucked, but it was decent enough and we could come back to this place, it was free and it was easy to find.

We'd already tried the free-camping shit, before we'd found this place- two nights sitting in the rain under a tree with a one-man tent Dan had managed to dredge up from God knows where, wrapped in two thick blankets with no hot meal or hot drink to keep us going. It had not been nice, and we didn't have enough money to waste it booking rooms in bed and breakfasts or whatever.

In the week we'd been out of CHERUB, I'd managed to get to my Dad's apartment and rescue the papers there. After several trips back and forwards, we even had a mini cooking stove –seriously, my Dad was either insane or could see the future because, why else would you have shit like that in a flat in Manchester?- lots of food that had been left and a whole array of containers that we were using to store water in, since we didn't have any running water.

Peter had been contacting us regularly. He hadn't been exactly happy that we'd ran off from CHERUB permanently, but since we were the only ones able to run around with relative freedom, he couldn't complain too much. He knew that Arron and himself were still being watched and couldn't do anything to help out just yet. So Peter had been directing us on how to look after ourselves and where to go to see the right people. He was also the reason for our nightly –although the night thing, as Dan had pointed out, _had _been my idea- visits to random people's houses.

Of course, Dan and I still had to be careful- we knew that at the very least, the police would have been notified about two missing children. They wouldn't exactly be out searching the streets for us, but if we got caught breaking in, or they found us wandering the streets looking a little grubby and smelling none too fresh, they might connect the dots.

"I'm hooooommmmmmeeee!" I called into the empty house as I squeezed through the back door.

Both the front and back doors on all of the houses had been bordered up, but despite appearances, nailed in boards aren't too hard to kick to death. Just hard to completely remove.

"Shut up! What if someone hears you?" Dan hissed as we turned a wooden table onto its side and shoved it up against the gaping hole in the door in an attempt to stop too much of a draft attacking us.

"No one has yet, Dan. Chill out, will you?" I sighed, heading through a door-less doorway and into the sitting room.

Two old, dusty and kinda smell chairs greeted me, and I dunked my heavy bag happily on the first before collapsing on the second. Dan followed me in chucked my bag off the chair and flopped into it himself.

"We should shut the windows before it gets cold," Dan sighed.

We opened all the upstairs windows in the morning because the place, even after a week, was as dusty as hell and stank still. The downstairs windows were mostly boarded up.

"Ugh. Do we have to?" I moaned, tired after being woken up early because there wasn't any fucking curtains and apparently, they don't border up windows properly anymore.

"Yes, Anna. Or, more accurately, _you _have to, since I had to do it yesterday," Dan told me forcefully.

I groaned and pulled myself up, grumbling about windows and boards and crappy shit. I trudged upstairs and picked a random room to start with. 'Closing' the windows didn't mean literally- any glass that hadn't been removed and sold or whatever people do with it, had been smashed by morons with bricks- we had to find random house hold objects to wedge into the windows. Dan had managed to find some floor boards and I demolished some crappy wooden chairs, so, for the most part, it was easy enough to block the windows up using boards. Until they started falling out of the window again. Which happened a lot. And was incredibly annoying.

I stomped back downstairs half an hour later, to see Dan trying not to laugh at me.

"What took you so long?" He asked, faking ignorance.

"Those bloody windows hate me!" I declared, "Why do they hate me?"

Dan shrugged smugly, "Maybe you're just not very good at closing windows,"

"Hey! I am freaking talented at closing windows! I'm just considerably less talented at closing windows that hate me," I said defensively.

Dan laughed and got up, "I'll make dinner tonight, since you can't cook for toffee either,"

"I can! I just can't be arsed to sit and wait for it to cook through!" I defended myself once more.

I heard Dan's laugh from the room where the kitchen had once been.

"Fine, fine, I'll just go back to reading through all this shit then," I grumbled to myself, heading to the back of the room.

There was a pile of shit that Dan and I had yet to go through leftover from my Dad's apartment. Then I would need to get back to looking through all the shit Dan and I had 'acquired' recently.

"What's for tea then, maestro?" I asked sarcastically.

"Beans on toast," Dan told me with little enthusiasm.

"Brilliant," I called back, my tone mirroring Dan's.

* * *

><p>Chapter 3~Emma<p>

"Emmmmmmmaaaaaaa!" Gabby whined, "Where did you put Sybil?"

I looked over my shoulder, "I put him back in the cage, Gabby! Now go away, I'm trying to have a conversation with Andrew," I saw Gabby's face and quickly backtracked, "With Andrew and _my friends_!" I yelled quickly.

"Funny how Andrew is separate from your friends," Gabby noted slyly.

I glared at her. God, she was almost as annoying as Anna! I was beginning to think that Anna had paid Gabby to make sure she teased me every waking moment about Andrew.

"Actually, I might have left Sybil's cage open, Gabby," I frowned, pretending to be worried. I hadn't left it open of course, but, well... "You should go check,"

Gabby looked at me in horror, "You left Sybil's cage open? What if he escaped and got stood on?"

"Funny," I said, mocking her earlier tone, "how you say _escaped_. Why would a _lovely _hamster like Sybil want to escape?" I'd met Sybil. He was _not _lovely. Trust me.

Gabby glared at me and ran off.

I turned back to Andrew, Elizabeth and Raine, who were looking on in a mixture of surprise and amusement, "So, what were you guys saying?" I asked briskly, trying to avoid thinking about how I'd just been mean to Gabby. I hadn't been _that _mean. Not really.

"Um... we think Gabby's right. You guys should totally get together," Elizabeth said abruptly, almost grinning.

Andrew coughed and looked slightly embarrassed. I could feel my cheeks going bright red. I look at Elizabeth in a seriously-you-_had_-to-bring-that-up-again-didn't-you glare, "Moving on," I muttered.

"No, seriously you guys!" Elizabeth cried, "You two are like... I dunno... You two just should totally get together!"

I looked at Raine to get her opinion. She remained frustratingly neutral.

"Anna and Dan are together!" Elizabeth added.

"So...?" I asked carefully.

Elizabeth faltered, "I don't know. That usually works or pisses off whoever I tell it to,"

"Ok then," I said brightly, "Let's move on now whilst Elizabeth is still distracted. Why did Tom and Liam want us to meet up here anyway?" I asked Andrew.

Andrew shrugged, "I dunno. They just said that we should be _here, _not in the hall or anywhere when we meet up,"

I think it had begun to be a tradition- we always got up at roughly the same time and made our way down to the hall to eat breakfast. By the time we'd all eaten, everyone was there, so we just took it from there and hung out wherever. Tom and Liam, though, had told us yesterday to meet up out here, which resulted in several people going hungry to avoid meeting someone else in the hall.

"Helpful," I sighed, looking around the Red shirts block, "Could it not have been _anywhere _else?"

There were about thirty kids running around us and our conversation didn't exactly feel _private_. I spotted Jonah heading over with Lilly, and waved them over.

"Hey you guys!" Lilly grinned, "Nowhere to sit, I take it?"

"Unfortunately no- Elizabeth did not feel the need to dirty her fingernail in helping us secure ourselves a bench and, well, younger kids just don't seem scared of us any more," Andrew sighed.

"Hey! It's not my fault I arrived first!" Elizabeth grumbled.

"But it is your fault you didn't grab us a bench," I reminded her.

Raine grinned and tried not to laugh at Elizabeth's indignant expression.

"Anyway, any of you guys have a _clue _why we're _here_? And not somewhere nice and comfortable enjoying ourselves and eating nice food?" Jonah asked.

"None of us have a clue. Liam and Tom _still _haven't turned up," Raine shrugged.

Elizabeth looked up, startled, "Oh! I thought you guys knew- Meryl demanded the two of them over to her office this morning. Tom reckoned she wanted another interrogation session," She rolled her eyes.

Meryl had, over the past few days, called all of us into her office more than once and asked us a few 'simple' questions about Anna's disappearance. I would've had an excuse, since I wasn't supposed to have an contact on missions, and, by the time I'd arrived back, Anna had already been discovered missing, but, of course, since the whole ringing-CHERUB-to-tell-MI6-they-had-a-spy-and-it-could-screw-up-all-of-their-plans thing, it had been made pretty clear they knew just how many rules I'd broken.

I sighed, "She has to have gathered by now that we either don't have a clue what Anna is doing or we're not gonna tell her,"

"Yeah, but she's one persistent bugger," Tess muttered from behind.

I swung around to grin at her and joined in the chorus of hello's from the rest of the group.

"Great, so now we're just waiting on Tom and Liam and ultimately on whenever the heck Meryl decides that interviewing the two of them today wasn't going to work," Jonah announced.

"We could be some time then," Raine sighed glumly.

"Or not- I think that's Tom now," Andrew pointed to him, struggling through a group of red shirts.

"So where's Liam?" Elizabeth asked.

Tom had got near enough to overhear us by now and supplied us with the answer, "Gone to print something out," He shrugged, sidling up next to Elizabeth, "He'll be here any minute,"

I smiled sympathetically, "How was the interrogation, then?"

"It wasn't _so _bad- Meryl had the decency to offer tea and cookies this time. But if she thought that was gonna bribe us into telling her, she's forever doomed to be in the dark," Tom smiled slightly.

"So- why did you tell us to meet here this morning?" Lilly finally asked the question we'd all been wondering.

"Oh, well Liam got an email yesterday, and he showed it to me. We were gonna tell you guys about it yesterday, only we got sidetracked, couldn't remember exactly what the message was and, well, didn't really want anyone overhearing it," Tom explained sheepishly.

"And you think no one is going to overhear us _here_?" Jonah asked, gesturing to the kids all around us.

Andrew shook his heads, "They're practically all under ten and are playing with their friends- they're not paying us the slightest bit of attention. They don't care what we're talking about. What I don't get why this message is so important and who would overhear us in the lunch hall anyway?"

"Well, Anna wasn't exactly all out popular and friendly to everyone, was she? Dan was pretty much neutral with all people and Karlie hadn't really been here long enough to make an impression, but I know one person who would _really _like to get her own back on Anna," Elizabeth said thoughtfully.

The others nodded in realisation and I gathered I was the only one who didn't have a clue who Elizabeth was going on about, which sucked, considering Anna was _my _sister, and my twin.

"Um... Who is this?" I asked reluctantly, having a silent battle inside over my pride. Better to ask than to make out like I knew and completely embarrass myself.

"Oh! I keep forgetting- you won't have met her probably. Or seen her. What, with BT, then on your mission," Raine slapped her forehead, "It's this obnoxious brat called Sandi. She and Anna got into several fights while you were on your mission- and several fights while we were all in Basic Training, too, apparently. Although, thinking about it, she was due to go into BT with Anna and Karlie- and that starts tomorrow,"

"Ok, I'll keep an eye out for her and avoid her at all costs, then, until she goes tomorrow," I muttered.

If Raine was insulting someone that I had never met- I'd found out long ago that Raine was big on people having their own opinions, so if Raine was insulting someone I'd never met, I decided to brace myself for the worst, just in case.

"Here's Liam- finally," Tess muttered, bringing us back to the present.

Liam jogged up holding a piece of paper in his hand and carrying his laptop under his other arm.

"You took your time!" Tom muttered to him.

Liam shrugged, "Don't blame me- blame that bloody printer! It was a nightmare!"

Tom tutted disbelievingly and pulled the sheet off Liam, placing it in front of me, "This is the email Liam got last night. We think it's from Anna, since Anna hacked Liam's email address a while ago. His email account recorded that it was sent yesterday afternoon- when we were messing around in the paintballing arena trying to avoid Meryl,"

I looked down at the sheet and realised why I'd been given it specifically. It read;

_EmailsToMyself (gmail)_

_EMMA!_

_**School Website Background Redecorated**_

_I'll email my(other)self again soon cos I've got nothing much to do =)_

_A&D_

"The A and the D obviously stand for Anna and Dan, and if Anna's sent it, you could count as her other self, and all that shit," Liam started.

"The email address at the top is obviously the one we'll be using if we want to talk to her, and we think the message to you is the password," Tom finished, barging in so he could say it before Liam.

I looked at the message Anna had given me, "Perfect, I know just what the password is,"  
>"What?" Was the general response from the group.<p>

"Lemon tree, of course!" I grinned at their puzzled looks.

"Why would your school website have a lemon tree for their background?" Andrew asked, bemused.

"Well Anna got bored," I began, and was cut off with a round of I've-heard-too-many-stories-beginning-like-that groans from Liam, Tom, Andrew and Elizabeth.

"C'mon guys, let's at least find somewhere to sit down and then we can check out this email account and see if we've got any mail," Tess suggested, gesturing to Liam's laptop.

So that was what we did, and ten minutes later we were sitting down to read Anna's rather insulting email.

* * *

><p>Chapter 4~Emma<p>

_Anna is speaking;_

_Hey you guys! If you're reading this you're not as completely moronic as I originally thought you were! Congratulations! So, I promised I'd talk to you miserable lot, and this is how we'll do it. Make sure though, you guys, that you put your name at the top of the email whenever you send one, otherwise this is just gonna get confusing! Just follow my example! Anywho, letting you know that all is nice and dandy, Dan and I are not in danger of immediate of dying – apart from maybe food poisoning, since _Dan _is cooking. We've got ourselves a base with electricity, food, water, internet and all that shit. We're also in regular contact with Peter, and through him, kinda Arron, but not much, since both of them supposedly don't know where we are and are being stalked by MI6 and we're not sure whether their phones are bugged or not. We're going to act like they are anyway._

_The one person we need contact with now is Karlie so if any of you guys come up with a vaguely good idea, let me know and I'll tell you how immensely thick you are and point out all the reasons why it'll never work!_

_Dan's Part Of The Email Because Anna Decided He couldn't Have A Whole New Email Just To Say This;_

_Hi everyone. Bye._

"Well, at least they're ok," I said after a few minutes.

"Yeah," Elizabeth agreed, "But I was expecting something... _more, _you know. Like, information or something,"

"Maybe they don't want to send us anything unless it's major- in case someone managed to read it," Andrew suggested.

Raine frowned, "I can't think of any way we can get a hold of Karlie- she left her phone here, no one knows her email address, where she was heading, any of the important factors,"

"Now, this is the part where, if it were Anna here, she would've produced some sort of face-recognition software and tracked Karlie down to the exact square-meter, seem as though she's such a technical genius," Tom frowned, "Although, she probably wouldn't have, since I doubt she'd have thought up something like that,"

I grinned, "More likely she'd be pinning up posters with messages for Karlie saying stuff like 'The name of my sister's hamster' or something and another email address underneath,"

Lilly and Jonah were discussing something quietly, and Tess was frowning to herself. Liam and Andrew were talking about new avoidance tactics since both of them had decided they were thoroughly fed up of Meryl. That left Elizabeth, Raine, Tom and I to think things through.

"There isn't a fool-proof, bound-to-work plan, really. None of us have a _clue _where she is," I said glumly, at last.

"I hate to say it, but I kind of have to agree. What exactly _can _we do to find her? If any of us were good at hacking, I suppose we could hack into a member of staff's accounts on the computers and they'd probably have _something_ we could use. But none of us are that good," Tom agreed.

Raine was frowning thoughtfully, but Elizabeth had decided to go for the 'think out loud' option, "You know, Karlie was running away because she said she hadn't finished with Dasakota- she said _most _of them had been picked up by MI6, but MI6 didn't have a list of _all _the members, so they wouldn't have arrested everyone. And not _everyone _must've been at that whole prison break thing, and only some members from Manchester must've been arrested when MI6 rescued Anna and Arron last year,"

"Hang on; Karlie said they didn't have a list of all the members? If they didn't how would _she _have a chance of finding anyone? And how does she know there's a list in the first place?" Raine interrupted. We all looked at her as she started to grin, "Don't you think it's a bit presumptuous of her- MI6 couldn't possibly get everyone, but she could?"

I frowned, "From what I've seen of Karlie- although I haven't been around her that much- I don't think she's that kind of presumptuous,"

"So maybe she had some sort of list of all the members?" Tom suggested.

Elizabeth bit her lip, "When Anna had her laptop confiscated, she spent, like, the whole of the next day on a cute little mini one that I'd never seen before in my life. Then it disappeared until I spotted Karlie packing it to take with her. Perhaps it's on there?"

"It's a possibility we could consider, but I don't see what exactly this has to do with getting in touch with her," Tom pointed out impatiently, after a couple more minutes of silence.

Raine frowned, "Um... pretty much nothing, really, I was just wondering,"

We went back to the silent thinking, Raine looking slightly put out and Elizabeth no longer speaking out loud. Andrew and Liam presently rejoined our non-conversation.

"So, what're you guys doing?" Liam asked.

"Thinking," Was Elizabeth's short reply.

"About...?" Andrew prompted.

"Stuff?" Raine suggested.

"What sort of stuff?" Liam scowled, sensing Raine was mocking them slightly.

"Stuffy stuff," I told him, keeping a straight face.

"What kind of stuffy stuff?" Andrew asked, sounding slightly annoyed.

"Interesting stuffy stuff," Tom supplied this time.

"God you guys are so immature. It's like since Anna's not around, you don't have to try to act mature to keep her in line anymore!" Liam snapped.

"Hey! Come on! We were just having a bit of fun!" Raine laughed.

Tess peered over at us, "Yeesh, Liam, loosen up a bit will you?"

Lilly and Jonah turned around to see what was happening, but before Liam could make a snappy, defensive reply, Gabby ran up screaming at me.

"You _did _leave the cage open you moron! Sybil's got out and I can't find him!"

Everyone looked at Gabby, then at me and I shrugged defensively, "She was teasing me so I said I wasn't sure I'd shut the hamster cage. But I had!"

"Well it's open now!" Gabby cried, whacking me on the head with- ...was that _seriously _a bag of hamster food she just hit me with? "And Sybil isn't in there!"

"Woah, woah, wait a minute, back up- you're hamster is called _Sybil_?" Lilly asked, torn between confusion and laughter.

Gabby stopped hitting me to glare at her, "Yeah. So?"

"And it's a boy hamster?" Lilly continued.

"So?" Gabby repeated, in a get-on-with-it-I-want-to-go-back-to-killing-Emma tone.

I myself, meanwhile, was desperately signalling for Lilly to shut up immediately- Gabby was very touchy on the subject of Sybil typically being a girl's name. Lilly ignored my dire warnings.

"Why exactly did you call a boy hamster a girl's name?" Lilly spluttered out eventually.

Gabby chucked the hamster food bag at her and she- luckily enough, since that food bag had to feed _all _the red shirt's hamsters- managed to catch it without getting it spilt everywhere.

"Why does everyone always ask that? Why can't they just accept that I called my hamster Sybil! I even looked it up on the internet- it can be a guy's name as well as a girl's name!" Gabby wailed.

"Yeah, Gabby, that's true," I nodded, "But then, Alex, Jordan, Sam... um..."

"Charlie, Drew, Joe, Kai," Andrew filled in as I tried to think of more.

"And Harper Seven!" Jonah added on the end.

"... Who. The. _Fuck_. Calls their kid _Harper Seven_?" Gabby demanded.

"Gabby!" I snapped immediately, "Don't swear!"

Gabby stuck her tongue out at me, "Anna swears all the time!"

"Well... Anna shouldn't! Anna's a moron," I told her.

"Yeah, a moron who hacked into MI6 at the age of seven. She told me about that, you know?" Gabby grinned, pleased to know something I didn't. And I seriously hadn't known _that._

I looked at the others, trying to see if they'd heard this from Anna. Apparently not.

"Um... Gabby- I think she was making that up," I muttered, bracing myself for a Gabby-tantrum involving lots of hamster food being chucked at me.

"Uh uh, ask Anna yourself, sometime!" Gabby said adamantly, "She said she hacked into Dad's secret website when she was seven and it was the MI6 weird thingie, like it was when she hacked into it last week,"

"Dad's secret website?" I asked sceptically.

"Bite me," Gabby shrugged, collecting her hamster bag, "That's what she said, if you don't believe me, fine. But you'll have plenty of time to think it over while you _all_," She glared viciously at Lilly, Jonah, Tess, Andrew, Elizabeth, Tom and Liam, then back to me, "help me find Sybil,"

And with that she stormed off, swinging the hamster food bag over her shoulder as she went.

"Christ," Lilly murmured, after a few seconds of stunned silence, "Your little sister is _terrifying_,"

"You can stop looking gormless and start looking for Sybil sometime soon!" Gabby yelled over her shoulder.

"One bossy, know-it-all sister leaves, and another one takes her place!" I moaned, starting reluctantly after Gabby.

* * *

><p>if you made it to the bottom, you have to read this and then wish Lizzy a happy birthday.<p>

even if you're just going to think it.

and if you're Lizzy...

maybe don't...

it's weird wishing yourself a happy birthday.

okay... for anyone still reading... mabe don't wish Lizzy a happy birthday out loud.

you'll probably look extremely weird.

but either way...

im just rambling now...

are some of you still reading this?

no, seriously, is anyone there?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AGAIN LIZZY! =D

hope ALL of you enjoyed the chapter!

If you're still reading this for reasons beyond me, stop around now. go do something more productive. Like read. Or watch BBC Sherlock. If you can. It's awesome.


	2. The 'Joys' Of Everyday Life

sorry for the delay since the first chapter- i've been a bit lazy lately. (although i did go on a sleepover and only had 3 hours sleep, so some excuses are valid) anywho, here is some more!

* * *

><p>Chapter 5<p>

Karlie balanced herself on the branches, peering out of the tree in time to see her latest target leave the house.

The man was fifty-three years old with no wife, no children, grandchildren (obviously), nieces, nephews, cousins, brothers or sisters who cared enough to visit and no apparent life, either. George Clampton. He was part of Dasakota- a member of the Ipswich division, according to her all faithful laptop.

George climbed stiffly into his eighty-thousand year old Ford and started the engine. It stalled pitifully, but eventually, he got it out of the driveway and was making hopeful progress down the road.

Karlie slipped out of the tree and landed, crouching in the small alley-type-thing between the man's garage and his house. If she was right, Karlie was just out of sight of the security camera George had placed out at the front of the house. There weren't any around the back, since there were no ways into the garden other than the alley Karlie was standing in, and to get there, a burglar would supposedly have to go through the front, and pass the cameras.

Of course, Karlie thought to herself as she entered the back garden, anyone with a brain could break into this house easily. Then again, only someone specifically targeting this house would actually need a brain- any thieves would go for the less securitized houses around it.

She managed the lock on the door with ease and slipped quietly inside. She slipped her backpack off and took out her laptop immediately, plugging it into the nearest socket. It needed charging and, well, electricity wasn't to be wasted, right? She grinned as she saw a load of books on even more bookshelves covering almost every square inch of wall. Great burning material.

She grabbed several off the shelves and dunked them in the middle of the floor, ripping several books apart for the heck of it. She checked upstairs and found a small stack of paperwork which she also dunked on her growing pile of firewood. Unlike Anna and Dan, she wouldn't need any of the stuff. Her sole purpose was to destroy and wreck havoc.

The rest of the house took less than ten minutes to trash and turn into decent firewood assembled downstairs or broken up junk.

Eventually, Karlie stopped trashing stuff and focused on trying to find a way directly from the house to the garage to try and find some petrol or something highly flammable. No such luck, so she went out of the house in full view of the camera and looked in the garage. There was no point in hiding now- no one was in the house, and if there was some sort of alarm that would alert George, he was too far away now to do anything about it.

She found what she was looking for and lugged it back to the house, unable to stop grinning. Karlie had, decidedly, missed the blowing up and burning of various houses. The pyromaniac inside her had been waiting the past few months for a moment like this.

She unscrewed the lid thing on the petrol can and started pouring liquid on all of the broken, trashed items downstairs, avoiding her laptop and her own stuff because, well, she wasn't going to be happy if her _own _stuff caught fire.

Once that was done Karlie decided her laptop had charged enough, so she quickly unplugged it and packed it away. Finally, she was good to go and all that was left now was for her to start a fire and get the hell out of there. So she did.

Karlie was halfway down the street before the first fire alarm went off, and the fire had _really _caught. She grinned to herself and picked up the pace. She was really starting to appreciate just how much she'd been missing at CHERUB- mostly, the satisfying feeling when she set something on fire. Then again- CHERUB had good food, warmth, a comfy bed and friends.

Karlie sighed at that last thought. She was seriously going to have to find a way to talk to Anna. Life on the run wasn't too bad, all things considered, but sooner or later the loneliness- something she'd never had to struggle with before- would drive her round the bend. And no one wanted an insane pyromaniac with a couple of petrol cans and a determination to get revenge on their hands. Not nice.

There were a few places she could go- like the one she was currently at- where there were other kids and civilisation, but Karlie wasn't too keen to start a conversation in case she accidentally let something drop that was supposed to be secret. So it was the life of a loner for her. Brilliant.

* * *

><p>Chapter 6<p>

"I know you've put a _lot _of effort into trying to track down Michael Simons," Commander Green started apologetically, wincing at the cold glares she was getting off both Lola and Jason (who, for once had agreed on something), "But, well, it's a different matter now. You two were useful before because you knew him better than almost anyone and could be relied upon to find him. However, now that he's a fugitive, well... it's another matter, really. We can't trust that at least one of you won't be sympathetic to Michael and try to... sabotage... our attempts at finding him,"

Jason and Lola kept up the icy glares. If Anna and Emma had been there, they would have been dismayed or amused (depending on which of the twins) to realise that they had inherited their death glares from their Mum.

Jason was furious, after spending pretty much all his spare time on finding Michael, he was being kicked off the job. He knew Green was right- he and Lola would have immediately started working against them. That wasn't why he was so angry. Whoever took up the search would now have all of Lola and his compiled information on Michael and the most likely places he would seek refuge.

Lola was also furious. Over the past week, she'd been slowly shredding piece by piece of the information they had on her husband. It had been a slow process, since she didn't want to alert anyone of what she was doing, and she'd only managed to get about ten of the most important sheets shredded. That left an awful amount of information lying around. Another factor in her fury was that if they were pulling her and Jason off the case because they couldn't trust them, chances were, over the next few weeks, someone might decide to do a little house search here and there, and find her hiding Michael.

However, both of them had been expecting this for a few days now- Lola a few days more before Jason, to the delight of her competitive nature. Lola had been expecting it ever since Michael had arrived. MI6 had been informed of the events in Manchester three days later. News travelled slowly here, much to the disgust of... well, everyone.

Commander Green fled the room after delivering the news, leaving Lola and Jason to themselves.

"I still don't believe Michael would've done any of the things everyone's accusing him of doing," Jason scowled, "I reckon Manchester just screwed up royally and now they're looking for someone to blame it on,"

"Either that or someone is deliberately putting blame on him because they have a massive grudge," Lola shrugged, "Either way, he didn't do at least half of the stuff. They're making it up. I checked the files on it yesterday," Lola told Jason, "That rumour that he set fire to the top of the building is a _complete _lie," She shook her head, "And so was the one going around about how he killed three members of staff and locked one in a storage cupboard," The last one, Lola knew, was true, of course, from what Michael had told her. But the rest of it was made up rubbish.

Jason nodded, "I checked the prison records- every Dasakota member in that raid is in police custody right now, awaiting a trial, so Linda Goaldi was lying when she haughtily announced to me in front of everyone that Michael had helped around eight Dasakota members escape from the holding cells in MI6. I'm getting _sick _of everyone making up untrue shit just to sound like they have a clue about what's going on,"

Lola, who had had pretty much every member of the Atlantic City MI6 Division come up to her and say something rude and untrue about her husband, couldn't help but smile, "Think about it, though, they'll be regretting every word they've said about it if Michael get's proved innocent. I'll be the one shoving it in their faces then. Maybe I'll shove my fist in their faces too. The lot of them deserve that, the way they're going about,"

Jason shrugged, "Well, I will look forward to that day with honest sincerity, but, until then, as Greenie has so kindly reminded us, we've got three hours to move our stuff out of here and let the _other _professionals get to work on tracking down Michael,"

"I still don't see why they couldn't just move all of the stuff _we've _researched over to somewhere else, rather than throwing us out," Lola grumbled.

"Because they're lazy and think they're superior to the older, 'soon-to-be-retired' agents," Jason shook his head, "The younger generation- I _swear _we were more respectful to our elders,"

Lola looked at him pointedly. She was two years older than him. "_You _never were,"

"Well you don't count, do you? I joined MI6 before _you _did!" Jason exclaimed.

"So? I worked in the police force _and _MI5 before you joined MI6!" Lola argued heatedly.

This was an argument they'd had many times over the past few months, and during the years before Lola took herself into retirement. The two of them always seemed to come up with new excuses to have the same argument. Both were determined that they were better and more superior than the other. Usually it ended with Lola punching Jason and Jason relying on some other agent to come to his rescue and tell her off.

"That shows that _you _had to work your way up! I went straight to the top!" Jason grinned.

"Which, of course, explains why I've gone on more missions than you have even though I've been here less than you have and have already retired once," Lola jibed.

It was a low blow- Jason was very sensitive to the fact that he never got picked for missions. Apparently, they were expected to have the ability to be _stealthy._ Which was, unfortunately, something Jason did not own. If there was something loud to be stepped on or tripped over within a ten mile radius, Jason would find it and step on it/trip over it.

"I think it's because you used to wear skirts and flirt with all the Commanders," Jason pouted.

Lola looked at him, disgusted, "The only Commander I've ever had is _Greenie_!"

Jason shrugged, "So?"

"So, if anyone was flirting with anyone else to get missions, it would've been you!" Lola retorted, "And how does any of that prove that I'm _not _older and therefore more experienced, clever and generally better at everything than you?"

"Well, that's debatable- you're organisation skills are more than lacking," Jason tutted.

"And? You're organisation skills are non-existent!" Lola snapped.

"While you were painstakingly working your way up to MI6, I spent months tracking down and collecting evidence against a particularly nasty and notorious drug cartel," Jason snapped.

"And when I joined it took me under a fortnight to take down that drug cartel single handed, with only a gun, and umbrella and a paperclip," Lola announced.

It was actually a true story, and it wasn't one Jason enjoyed listening to.

"You also used an old chemistry file, some petrol and a box of matches!" He objected pointlessly.

Lola shrugged, "Details," She told him, dismissing it immediately.

Jason threw his hands up in despair.

* * *

><p>Chapter 7~Anna<p>

Dan and I shoved our plates to one side, temporarily ignoring that someone was going to have to wash them up. The light above our head flickered several times. We glanced up.

"Bulb's going," Dan muttered.

"No shit. I told you that you should have bought some last time you went shopping. This place is set to be demolished! Nothing, not even light bulbs, are gonna last long," I reminded Dan.

Dan shrugged off my accusation, "Who cares? It wasn't exactly as if we're gonna needing a light bulb that lasts five years or whatever. Besides- it could always just be the wiring," The bulbs from all the lights in the house had, surprisingly, been left, not smashed, vandalised or stolen. I took it as an indication that the bulbs were crap. Dan had gone on a house-items-replacement shop, because, as he is so often reminding me these days, ordinary household object should _never _be underestimated. He, however, had neglected to get any light bulbs. Maybe he has nightmares over them, and that's why he has issues with chairs, tv remotes, pizza boxes, glass tables, blocks of sticky notes, cushions, vases of flowers and food left over in saucepans.

I settled back in my chair and sighed, "I take it it's work obsessively to look through all this new information, grabbing a quick snooze then heading off someplace or other to do something or other?"

Dan nodded, "Pretty much. I'm going to head out to see if we've got a definite date for demolition yet. I dunno how these things work, but I want to know exactly when they're gonna start aiming a bulldozer or whatever at us,"

"If they're gonna announce it, they won't be doing it at two o'clock in the morning," I pointed out.

Dan shrugged, "Well then, looks like you've got some moral support for you adventure into the world of millions of very boring looking files,"

"Uh huh. Maybe I'll get lucky and they'll all have really funny and ridiculously weird named files like the ones on Karlie's laptop," I yawned, grabbing my laptop, "You can look through some of those papers that I can't be arsed to read myself," I told Dan, nodding to the pile of papers I'd been reading through before tea. If it can really be called tea, considering it was _Dan _cooking it, and we had it at two in the morning.

Dan groaned and complained under his breath as I managed to get some internet signal and started to download a few files.

"Why am I even looking at statistics for alarm clock sales?" Dan cried after five minutes.

I looked up from my oh-so-interesting essay on how to measure a bunch of stones on a beach. Apparently, it's called a transect, and people do it in Geography to find out boring shit. They actually _measure _stones, every five metres. Why not look on the ground and write down, sandy, stony, neither? Why even bother in the first place?

"We're trying to find evidence against our mysterious spy in MI6 and the best way to do that is raid the homes of suspected members of Dasakota members to try and find some sort of information. Life would've been so much more fucking easy if I'd remembered to ask Karlie about all this shit before we'd left," I sighed.

"At least you've got your handy dandy memory stick full of information from MI6," Dan said brightly, clearly deciding that complaining wouldn't get him sympathy- it'd get him company.

"Yeah, handy dandy because it's got the whole of about 50 words on it plus a few bits and bobs of information on suspected members," I grumbled, annoyed at myself.

"Well, you couldn't exactly have predicted what happened, could you? To be honest, you were lucky enough as it is to have managed to hack into MI6, since, well, no one is supposed to be able to do that or whatever," Dan reasoned.

I didn't even bother looking up at him, "People hack into top secret bullshit all of the time, Dan, so you're main point in that sentence was _supposed_."

"Hang on- it took you _months _to figure out how to get into MI6!" Dan exclaimed, "And now you're telling me people do it all the time!"

I shrugged. Admittedly, I'd been exaggerating with the 'all the time' shit, but still, "Most people aren't as young as me, get caught within the first twenty seconds and are usually listed on this handy dandy list that the secret services and so on happen to keep. They have the details of every hacker in the country- as far as they know of- capable of even attempting hacking into top secret stuff,"

"... How did you find _that _out?" Dan asked after a pause.

"Die Hard 4," I replied, "So, technically it's America, but I was bored a couple of weeks ago and decided to check it out. England has one too- it's not just fictional gobbledygook- my name was- thankfully- not on it at the time," I looked up glumly, "Probably is _now. _Which means I'll have to put aside some time to hack into that list and delete my name and details off. More work for me. Maybe I should just force my Dad into doing it at some point,"

Dan said nothing. I guessed he had decided not to bother saying anything else- he could tell I was in one of those contradictory moods where I basically disagreed with everything anyone said. For some reason, people find my incredibly annoying when I'm like that. On the other hand, it does wonders to get rid of annoying people, so I'm not that bothered either way.

I continued with the transect crap. Then shrugged at it, because I have silent conversations with inanimate objects all the time, and crossed off the document, switched off the laptop and plonked it on the floor.

"Ok, I'm going to check our emails and see if my lovely juvly sister has replied," I announced. Then looked at the now switched off laptop and mentally face palmed.

"Either you're more brain dead from lack of sleep than normal, or you're natural blonde, ditziness is finally showing," Dan commented hiding a laugh.

I glared at him, "My superior brain cells have been worn in after several days of appalling cooking that has left me undernourished!" I announced.

Dan nodded, "Sure, because you haven't at all been eating chocolate bars all day then 'making up' for the unhealthy stuff by drinking orange juice and eating apples obsessively, have you?"

"Hey! Do not diss the orange juice and apples obsession! At least I'm healthier than you!" I exclaimed argumentatively.

"Right, because, suddenly, you're all about eating healthy," Dan retorted smugly.

"Well, fuck you," I told him, grabbing my laptop and switching it back on sulkily.

Dan laughed cruelly at me. I hit him over the head lightly.

"Ow!" He exclaimed.

"Serves you right," I told him huffily, as I logged into my emails.

* * *

><p>Chapter 8<p>

Karlie whistled tunelessly as she made her way through the backstreets. She was nearly back 'home' and had had a rather successful (destructive) day. Can was sitting waiting by the entrance.

"Yo, Kar! Thought you was neva gonna turn up!" She cheered, leaping down from the wall and heading over.

Can was called Can for the simple reason that she was found in a box of Heinz tomato soup cans, and, apart from Tomato, Soup and Heinz, Can seemed the only _real _name to give her. Although, there was some debate about whether or not she should've had the surname Ingredients.

Karlie shrugged, "Had this and that to do, you know? I told you not to wait for me anyways," She replied.

"Yah, well, it was getting borin' in there anywho, I figured there wasn't no difference between sittin' in there and gettin' a headache and sittin' up in the fresh air and losin' out on an productive day an' all that," Can replied airily, ducking into the side entrance to the car parking lot that was their current home.

A group of about thirty kids, from ages seven to seventeen were yelling about inside. All of them looked pretty well off at first glance- none too shabby clothes, clean, decently fed. But all of them were homeless and family-less. They kept themselves in good condition by stealing, pick-pocketing. Any illegal way of getting money, and one of the kids would probably be able to do it.

When Karlie had arrived in London for the first time, all that time ago, Can had been her only ally. Can had taught her the ropes, and shown her the places she could hide from the coppers, and where she could go to get a decent meal. After a while, Karlie had gotten together her own contacts in the city, and she, Can and three others had finally managed to sort out a little homeless children community. They found a place to stay, got good food; everybody pitched in and helped in some way.

Karlie had, of course, only arrived in London again two days ago, and it had taken her the whole of the first day and the majority of the second to track down the group. Needless to say, they were quite surprised to see her back. She'd managed to avoid serious questioning- for now- but that was going to end soon. Since she's been gone, one of the three others- a girl named O'Pars- had decided to go on a little rampage for power and had taken charge.

Sure enough, two seconds after Can and Karlie had arrived, she popped up, "And where have _you _been?"

Karlie rolled her eyes. The girl in front of her was only four years old and Karlie could definitely take her in a fight, would have more genuine support from the other kids and was ten times better at living off the streets than O'Pars, but that didn't mean she wasn't talked down to like any other kid.

O'Pars was one of the runaways. She'd lived in a posh house with everything she could have wanted- apart from freedom. Her parents were trying to marry her off to some rich freak, and she wasn't having any of it, so she'd told her parents to screw themselves and ran for it.

"Out," Karlie shrugged.

"So it's the one word answers again, then? Just like yesterday! Where have you been for so long? 'Away'!" O'Pars snapped mockingly, "And I don't suppose you thought it was worth helping out by getting some more food or money!"

Karlie kept walking past her, shrugging off the heavy backpack she was wearing. She dunked it on the floor then wolf-whistled to get the general attention of the room.

"Ok, KFC is on the menu! _One _chicken piece per person to start off with, so help yourself to other shit as well, 'cos no one is gonna get through with just that!" Karlie announced, pulling out three boxes of KFC and three 1litre Pepsi's. She grinned at O'Pars, "Problem?"

"Yes, actually!" O'Pars retorted as she dragged Karlie away from Can and the KFC, "You disappear for _weeks _on end, then turn back up like you own the place and refuse to answer any of my questions!"

"I don't own anything about this place, and everyone knows that- I just pitch in with food and ask not to be tied to this place. I come and go as I please. That's always been the way here. There isn't anyone tied to this place. Anyone can chose to stay or go. And why should I answer your questions? Everyone here's disappeared off at some point," Karlie retorted sharply, "We set this up to help out, and it isn't run by any one person. We all support it. It isn't a dictatorship, Pars, you should probably remember that,"

Pars grabbed Karlie's arm before she could storm off, "So where did you disappear off to for all of that time?"

Karlie pushed her hand away, "I got caught up with by Social Security after I tagged a place. I was sent off to a Kid's home for a couple of months and got myself a good life. But I had some unfinished business around and about, so I took off,"

"Explains the posh accent," Parsy jibed.

"Yeah, so? You got a problem with it?" Karlie snapped. What did it matter if she talked posher than before? She could still take any one of them in a fight if they tried her!

Can hurried over with three pieces of chicken, handing Karlie one and tossing another to O'Pars.

"Yous lot discussing your politics or whatever?" Can asked, biting into the chicken.

"We're not anymore," Karlie said, staring meaningfully at Pars.

"Yeah, whatever, we've shut up about it now anyway," The older girl spat out.

But something in her tone told Karlie that their argument was long from over, and that it was probably gonna end messy.


	3. Overhearing People's Conversations Day

I'm back again! enjoy! =)

* * *

><p>Chapter 9~Emma<p>

"So, I've been thinking," Andrew announced as set off down to our now official meeting place together, "We need a way to contact your brother, and Peter, in case of an emergency,"

I frowned, "Why? I mean, if we're that desperate, I can ring Arron. He can get into contact with Peter and so on,"

"Yes," Andrew agreed patiently, "But that all takes time, and we've got to be incredibly careful what we say, because, even if our phone calls aren't being monitored, Arron and Peter's definitely are, and they've got to be extremely careful that they don't say the wrong things and tip someone off. We need a direct, straight forward way to contact them,"

I sighed, biting my lip, "I don't really see how we could do much about it. Arron's gonna keep visiting here every Saturday to see us, so we can talk freely then..." I trailed off thoughtfully, "I suppose we can ask him when he next turns up. Which won't, of course, be for another week," It was Monday now.

"Can you email him or something, like, in code?" Andrew asked hopefully.

I shook my head, "Even if we somehow found a code both of us knew and could break the whole of MI6 would already have worked it out. Maybe if we all knew massive amounts of computer code and could beat almost anyone in encryption and decryption, it might work, but there's only one of Anna and well, even she has her limits,"

"Well, I suppose we'll have to wait a while then," Andrew sighed.

I spotted the others up ahead and waved to them.

"Any news on Sybil?" Lilly called out as we reached them.

I suppressed a grin, "Don't worry- Gabby won't be dragging you out to search for him again today. He turned back up in his cage sometime last night. We've got no clue how he got out or back in. I reckon Gabby didn't check the cage properly,"

Tess laughed, "Or maybe she just decided to pull a practical joke on us all and pretend he'd gone,"

I looked around and realised Andrew and I had been last to arrive, "So, what's today's big discussion? And have Anna and Dan emailed back?" We, after several fruitless hours searching for the he-devil-hamster had got back together to email suggestions on Karlie, update the two of them on life at CHERUB and generally just complain about Meryl stalking us and how they owe us so much for keeping our mouths shut.

Tom nodded, "I took the liberty of checking the email account this morning. Anna left us an email full of refreshing insults,"

He produced his IPod touch- he'd gotten it just this morning and, well, had developed an obsession for using it. Everyone else was full of jealousy. Andrew, however, seemed strangely reluctant to talk about buying IPod's. Elizabeth, for some reason, was finding his uncomfortableness highly amusing. I made a mental note to ask her about it later, when Andrew wasn't around to suffer.

A few seconds later, Tom waved an email in my face. I grabbed his IPod off him and held it so everyone (well, most people, anyway) could read it.

_Anna and Dan here!_

_So, firstly, addressing your complaints._

_Dan's reactions: Sorry Meryl's being so annoying, wish we could do something about it. Hopefully she'll lay off when she realises you're not going to tell her anything. Thanks for not saying anything as well =)_

_Anna's reaction: Suck it up ya wimps. Quit whining and do something about it. Like pull a load of pranks and make sure to get Sandi into trouble for them!_

_Secondly, Karlie suggestions._

_Dan: Great suggestions, you guys, keep 'em coming. We'll figure out a way to find Karlie soon!_

_Anna: Raine, your potential for genius may yet make you an actual genius. The rest of you, posters with What Is The Name Of My Sister's Hamster on it will not work. Your suggestions suck. Think up better ones. Seriously. Otherwise, I am going to start wondering if your brain cells are all dying from too little exercise._

_Thirdly, CHERUB news!_

_Dan: Ok, I can't be upbeat about school work. Seriously, you can't expect that from me._

_Anna: School! It's brilliant. You losers are all stuck there while me and Dan are kicking back relaxing and doing shit nothing. Enjoy SUCKERS!_

_Fourthly, our news!_

_Dan: We have none._

_Anna: Dan LIES! We have tonnes. For starters, yesterday I learned that the only thing Dan is capable of cooking is beans on toast and scrambled eggs. I also learnt it is not possible to survive on only chocolate and orange juice. I actually have to _eat _some of what Dan eats. Who needs BT? A week of Dan's cooking is far worse than any form of torture possible! Ok, maybe not torture by Justin __Bieber__Beiber __Beebuhr (ELIZABETH, I CANT BE BOTHERED TO LOOK UP HIS NAME! HOW THE FUCK DO YOU SPELL IT!) and Rebecca Black. So, the third thing I learnt? Carrots do _not _help you see in the dark. I have tried and tested that theory. They don't. Neither does eating your bread crusts make your hair curly. Fourth thing? I hate reading about how you do beach transects. It's really boring and completely pointless! And I _mean _completely pointless! YOU HAVE TO COUNT ROCKS! WHY? Fifth thing- ok, fuck it, we don't have any actual news..._

_So that's about it, really. No _real _news really. It's kinda depressing_

_Until the next time, A+D_

"Well, looks like they're just as clueless over what to do as we are," Jonah muttered.

"That's encouraging," Liam muttered.

Raine elbowed him sharply, "It's not exactly as if they were going to have every single detail perfectly planned out in the first place. It's _Anna_ and _Dan, _Liam. The two of them will be making the whole of this up as they go along,"

"Why do I get the feeling that it isn't going to go down well then?" I asked dryly.

Elizabeth laughed, "Have a little more faith, Emma. Your sister can blunder her way through almost any situation imaginable. She has an amazing talent for it, actually,"

Andrew cleared his throat, "Ok, so we don't have any leads for Karlie right now, that doesn't mean everything's screwed up, right? At some point one of us is gotta have _some _sort of brilliant, ingenious idea, right?"

Tess laughed and patted Andrew on the back, "You keep on hoping, Andrew. We've gotta have at least one optimist,"

"Yeah, 'cos otherwise the only thing we're all gonna be thinking about is the fact that those two and Karlie are missing school while we have to suffer through every moment of everyday!" Liam moaned.

Lilly grinned, a tad maliciously, "Well, they're the ones who're gonna have to catch up with all of the work they missed, aren't they?"

Jonah laughed, "I am _not _going to pity them for it,"

"Speaking of school," Liam announced, slapping Andrew on the back, "I've found a way of getting out of it for a day,"

"Oh yeah?" Andrew asked sceptically.

"Tess, you're faith in his optimism has been sadly misplaced," I told her.

"I know," Tess tutted at Andrew "We expected better,"

Liam ignored us, "There's one of those raids going on. Down near London. They're looking for a couple of volunteers who can trash the place and don't mind getting arrested afterwards," He told Andrew, "I've already spoken to Zack about it, but he can't go- he's already gotten into trouble with some stupid teacher,"

"You told _my brother _about it, before you told _us_?" Tess asked Liam, affronted.

Liam shrugged, "Zack's cool. Cooler than you,"

"Ooooh!" Lilly laughed, and Raine and Jonah joined in.

"You've insulted her now, Liam," Tom shook his head ruefully.

Elizabeth leaned over to me and Andrew, "Five pounds she punches him in the face and breaks his nose," She whispered.

I grinned, "Ok, I bet five pounds she chases him several hundred metres screaming insults and kicking him,"

"Deal," Elizabeth muttered and we shook hands sneakily, both suppressing smiles.

Tess was clearly focusing on beating the crap out of Liam, who was now hiding behind Tom.

"Ok! I take it back! You're awesome!" Liam yelped, dodging Tess' punch and diving behind Jonah, who subtly moved himself out of the way.

"Prove it!" Tess yelled at Liam, managing to kick him in the side.

"Um... how am I supposed to do that?" Liam cried, setting off at a run.

Tess chased off after him, "You can't! That's the point!"

Liam sped up.

I grinned at Elizabeth, "Five pounds, please,"

Elizabeth sighed and reluctantly gave me my five pounds, "Remind me next time, before I start betting, that I'm trying to save up for a new handbag,"

* * *

><p>Chapter 10<p>

Simon stomped down the corridor grumpily, glaring at the floor. He could _feel _everyone staring at him, laughing at him behind his back. His _real _identity might still be a secret, but he knew that there were several people who were extremely suspicious of him. To everyone else, he was just a laughing stock. Trust Michael Simons to have everyone in the country after him and escape, yet leave Simon locked in a storage cupboard in the middle of MI6. It took over three hours for him to get out, and even then, it was because someone had heard him yelling and managed to break the door down half an hour later.

But had that been the end of his troubles? No. After that, one of his 'higher ups' had become suspicious of him. What had he been doing in a part of MI6 that he _clearly _wasn't supposed or allowed to be in? How had he gotten locked in the cupboard anyway? Why had the security cameras around that area mysteriously not worked in the hour around the time he'd gotten locked up in the cupboard? He'd claimed Michael Simons had knocked him out, but why had Michael been there? Why would Michael want to knock him out? A lot of those questions Simon could answer, but all of them would be the wrong answers anyway. Moving on from MI6, the suspicion still hadn't stopped.

Simon muttered and grumbled as he got into his car and started driving, heading to a meeting with _the Elders_. They weren't even a part of the Manchester group. Then again, it was only Simon and about two others from Manchester who weren't in prison for some reason or other. So they'd been placed under the control of the Chester branch. It was humiliating enough- the Manchester branch had the most members out of all the other groups in the whole of Dasakota. Now there were three people left.

Even more humiliating was that, while the other two got by fine, Simon was under suspicion by Dasakota. Why? Because every member of his team was either arrested or is on the run, and everyone thought it was him who had stitched them all up. Simon was on his way to a meeting with them.

He parked his car outside a small village hall, in a remote village, three miles out of Manchester and got out stormily. On the more fortunate side to was the fact that he wasn't, at least, under surveillance. Unlike a certain Peter Kenedy. The only other good thing; at least he could count on Michael Simons having a much harder time than him.

He carefully opened the village hall's main door and stepped inside. It was gloomy inside, and he felt around for a light switch on the wall next to him. He flicked it on, and a light above him blinked on and off for a few seconds before settling down to cast off a small glow. The place was empty, meaning Simon was expected to wait around- presumably for an hour or two, before the three Chester Elders turned up.

Simon grabbed a chair from a stacked pile to one side of the hall, and sat down angrily. Typical elders. Just because they'd survived through fifty years or so of crime didn't make them any better than any other criminal in Dasakota. Stupid, self-obsessed morons.

More than half an hour later, Simon heard a car pull up outside. Quickly, he sat up, attempting to look less petulant and angry. It wouldn't do him any favours if he looked like a sulking five year old. He had to be professional, even if he really, _really _just wanted to punch their heads in.

Two old men and an even older, wizened looking woman entered.

"Simon Summers. Good to see you again," The first old man said, as Simon stood up respectfully, "I can only wish it was under better circumstances,"

Simon nodded at him, but didn't say anything. All he really wanted to say was insulting, and wouldn't get him anywhere.

"Let's get this over with, if we could. I've only got half an hour at the most before I need to be back," The woman snapped grumpily.

"Of course," The second man muttered hastily, before turning to Simon, "Simon, we understand that you are the only remaining member of the Manchester team sent to liberate John Smith,"

Simon nodded again, knowing he needed to get things exactly right. He didn't want his career to be questioned like this. If he was still under suspicion after they closed this case it would mean he wouldn't be trusted by anyone. He would be at the bottom of the ladder again, after all this time he'd spent working his way up it.

"Can you tell us what happened on the day of the attack on the prison?" The woman snapped impatiently.

Simon suppressed his anger and took a deep breath, "Well, I was at MI6. The plan was that I was to sneak down into the security area and, well, change a few things around, so that the rest of the team- with Fred, Franco and Sam in it- could get into the prison. However, as I made my way towards the security rooms, Francis- who I later found out was actually Michael and had been fooling us all for months- came up behind me and knocked me out. When I came to, around an hour later, I was locked inside a storage cupboard a few metres from the security area. It took me another two hours to get out, by which time, Francis- Michael- had made his getaway, the team down at the prison had been captured and Fred, Franco and Sam were locked up at the cells in MI6. I found out that Michael had gone to the cells and, rather than spring John Smith, he'd let out his son and daughter, who, for reasons beyond me, had gotten themselves locked up. One Anna and Arron Simons, who seem to be turning up like bad pennies, in quite a lot of Dasakota's foiled plans," So Simon was exaggerating- there'd only been two times, but every little detail helped, right? "I couldn't go to see the others, in case I made MI6 suspicious. They were already quite suspicious over the fact that the security cameras around the security area itself had gone... faulty, and I wasn't supposed to be there in the first place. Since then I've been keeping my head down and focussing on not drawing attention to myself,"

The second man smiled, "That's a nice story, Simon, but don't you think it's a tad suspicious that, out of all you're team, you're the only one left? You had a grudge on Francis, I understand. After all, you're effectiveness as a double agent dropped dramatically when he joined the ranks. And, of course, you might have been angry at the others for treating you unfairly. There are plenty of reasons for why you might have wanted this to happen,"

Simon tried not to punch him, "But I didn't want it to happen! I was knocked unconscious by Michael Simons, who, as you will have heard from your MI6 reports, was pretending to be Francis this whole time! Sam was my best friend! I wouldn't want to send him to prison! And, alright, I never really got on with Fred or Franco, but that doesn't mean I wanted to betray them and put them in prison, either! Why would I want to deliberately put over thirty of our members in prison?"

"Maybe you wanted to make a point?" The woman suggested.

"Yes," Simon said sarcastically, "Because putting a load of our members in prison would _really _prove what a loyal and valuable asset I am,"

The woman glared at him, then checked her watch, "Well, I've wasted enough time here already. I've heard your story and I'll consider your innocence, but I have things to get back to. We'll contact you soon, Simon,"

Simon didn't react as the three elders left. He waited a few minutes as he heard them getting back into their car and drive off, before storming back outside and climbing into his own car. Why did they think he was guilty somehow? The evidence that he wasn't was all there! _Clearly _he was innocent! Why couldn't anyone else see that?

Simon drove back to his house and pulled up on the pavement outside. His garage was still too filled of junk for him to fit in his car. He hadn't exactly been planning to return for a lot longer, but, of course, the safe house his team had been staying in was compromised, so it was back to his old house.

* * *

><p>Chapter 11<p>

Peter massaged his temple slightly as he looked around his office and sighed. He needed to get home soon, but, ever since Michael (or Francis, he supposed) left, all of his workload had been dumped on Peter and, with the mini investigation Karp was conducting in MI6, there was ten times as much to be done than usual.

Eventually, Peter gave up, shoved his stuff in his bag, shrugged on his coat and headed out. He wasn't going to spend the whole night at the office, no matter how much paperwork he had. Peter was definitely overworked and underpaid.

He waved at the new security officer that Karp had posted at the main door and headed out to the car park. He had just climbed into his car and closed the door when his phoned buzzed, telling him he had a text message.

Peter fumbled through his pockets and finally produced his phone. But it hadn't received any texts. Peter stuffed it back into his pockets and pulled open a secret compartment under the passenger seat. He pulled out the phone Michael had left for him. He checked his messages.

_His real name is Simon Summers. I don't know what he is called in MI6_

_M_

Peter sighed, deleted the text and looked around the car park, making sure no one was around to see him. He keyed in the number for the phone Michael had given Anna. He didn't have the number in his contacts, in case someone found the phone.

"The Queen's Feet, book a table or get off the phone," Dan muttered.

In the background he could hear Anna burst out laughing, and a hissed, "The Queen's Feet? Seriously?"

"Hi Dan. I got a message from Michael," Peter sighed.

"What did he say?" Dan asked, sounding really curious.

"Only that _His _name was Simon Summers, but that he didn't know what name_ He_ would be going by in MI6," Peter tutted, "Not very helpful, I know. But still- it's a start, right?"

He heard the phone switching hands and Anna was there, "What, no how're you guys holding up? I've been missing you? Typical. But anyway, it _would _be useful if we could find Karlie. If we could, we'd be able to cross reference that name with the members of Dasakota and maybe find out who he is,"

"Right, well, I take it no one has had any new ideas for finding her?" Peter asked unhopefully.

"Nope, but we can always hope," Anna replied sarcastically.

Peter looked around the car park again, and saw a group of people heading out of the main building, "Well, I've gotta go now. I'll call you if I get any new ideas or your father decides to grace us with some vague piece of information,"

"Bye then," Anna muttered, "Tell Arron I said Hi,"

"Will do," Peter called off and slipped the phone back into its secret compartment. He sighed again, and started up his car. He had a lot to think over on his journey home.

* * *

><p>Chapter 12~Emma<p>

My alarm clock went off loudly in my ear, and I groaned in frustration. I'd always hated getting up early, but nowadays it sucked even more, since I knew I had to get through a whole day of school _as well as _avoiding Meryl constantly. It was almost impossible to dodge her if she wanted to talk to you. I got dressed quickly in typical CHERUB uniform, grabbed my school bag and headed down to breakfast.

Andrew and Jonah were sitting at our usual table, talking. No one else out of little group had gotten up yet. I waved over at them and went to get food.

"So, what are you guys doing up so early?" I asked them, as I sat down across from Andrew.

"I completely forgot to do this essay on beach transects. I emailed Anna late last night for pointers, since she seemed to know a lot about it, but..." Jonah smiled slightly, "She didn't seem to eager to help. She copied and pasted some stuff and told me to get a life,"

"I'm helping him about a bit, since we're in the same class anyway," Andrew finished with a shrug.

I nodded, "Sounds... interesting,"

"You have no clue what a beach transect is do you?" Jonah asked suspiciously.

"Nope. None. I'm taking history for GCSE, not geography. What is a beach transect?" I sighed.

"It's where you measure... beachy stuff, like the angle of a slope every couple of metres, as far as I can tell anyway. Mr Brinso wasn't too specific on its exact meaning of it," Andrew bit his lip, "I really hope we don't have to write a definition for it, because if we do then I'm in trouble,"

"Am I hearing right? _Andrew _in _trouble_?" Elizabeth gasped mockingly, pretending to be shocked.

Jonah and Andrew jumped.

"Jesus, Elizabeth! You gave us a heart attack!" Jonah exclaimed, "Don't do that!"

Elizabeth grinned cheekily and sat down next to me, digging into a bowl of fruit salad, "Well, _I_ thought it was funny. So why is Andrew in trouble?" She demanded.

"He's not," I rolled my eyes, "He's just worried about not getting some marks because no one knows the definition of a beach transect,"

Elizabeth frowned, "You're kidding, right?" She took in or blank faces, "Ok, you're not kidding. Wow, Christ, I thought you two were the nerds." She looked at Jonah, "No offence or anything,"

Jonah acted wounded, "I'm in the same class as one of those nerds, even though I'm three years younger! How could you not think of me as a nerd?"

We laughed.

"But anyway," Elizabeth carried on, "I can't believe you don't know the definition of a beach transect! It's a geographical technique in which the angle of a beach is measured with a ranging pole and a clinometer."

We gawped openly at her.

"Are we sure she's Elizabeth, and not Elizabeth's evil, identical twin?" Andrew asked quietly.

"Woah! Elizabeth has an evil, identical twin! Christ, think how annoying and gossipy _she _must be!" Tess moaned from behind Elizabeth and I.

Lilly was with her, and the two of them plonked down on the bench next to us.

"What is this? Overhearing random, untrue parts of people's sentences day?" Jonah muttered sarcastically under his breath.

"What's random and untrue, Jonah?" I asked mischievously.

Jonah mimed shooting himself in the head, whilst giving me a ha-ha-you're-such-a-comic-genius glare. I shrugged innocently and finished off my breakfast.

"Well, I've gotta run- I've got an early class today," I made a face and grabbed my bag, "I'll see you guys at lunch," I promised, and headed off.

My first lesson of the day was maths, which was suitably boring. We were learning about algebra, a subject I just so happen to seriously hate and get seriously confused with. Typically, it was the one part of maths that Anna completely understood- apart from algebra maths was a mystery to Anna.

I settled down in my seat near the back and attempted to pay attention as the teacher droned on. On a normal day, I could cope with a forty five minute lesson, but today I was feeling twice as restless as usual. I couldn't stop thinking- worrying, really- about Anna and Dan. And Karlie, too.

What were they doing all day? Where exactly _were _they? And _why _did they get away with no school, homework or waking up early? Ok, so, I like lessons and learning, and its good fun at CHERUB. But sometimes I'd rather just be talking with friends, or relaxing. And, although I'm pretty sure the three of them were staying in luxury, five star hotels, they probably had quite a lot of spare time on their hands.

And then there was Mum and Dad. I hadn't heard anything since Arron's visit last weekend, and I probably wouldn't until this weekend, which seemed a long time away. From what Arron had said, they couldn't even talk that much. Dad was apparently being very... cautious about other people bugging his phone or tracing it. Arron and Peter had gotten a grand total of two texts, he'd told me over very vague emails. No phone calls at all.

So, any other news parent wise? I'd called Lola on Wednesday night, and promised to call her every week. She was holding up alright at work, but she couldn't mention Dad in case someone was listening to her phone calls, plus the fact that, apparently, their little American branch of MI6 had only just heard about him that morning. Lola's only excuse was 'news travels slowly around here'.

I was snapped back into the present by the bell ringing loudly. Everyone around me started packing up and heading out. I got slowly to my feet, shoving my stuff randomly in my bag. I had a whole day to get through, and I wasn't going to escape unscathed if I didn't start paying attention next lesson. I headed out of the classroom and to my next lesson, wishing I could somehow manage to skip a few lessons and... sleep in or something.


	4. A Different Point Of View

Chapter 13

Lola picked up her house keys and headed for the door, hurrying as fast as possible to avoid being late.

"I'm heading out!" She yelled as she opened the front door.

It might have seemed strange, to any on looking neighbour. Lola, although not a particularly chatty person, knew everyone on the street, to some extent. And everyone 'knew' she lived in her small house at the end of the street alone. She'd 'divorced' her husband several months ago, and had moved into the area for a fresh start. So why would she be yelling into an empty house? After all, none of the neighbours had ever seen that tall, dark figure that sometimes snuck out of the house, in the early hours of the morning, or very late at night. None of Lola's neighbours were at all aware that she was hiding someone in her house.

And Lola knew it had to stay that way, no matter how hard it was to keep up appearances. She didn't let many people inside her house, and was careful to leave nearly all of the blinds down when she left the house. But one day, she was bound to slip up, or forget something. And she was expecting a sudden and 'random' house visit at any point.

Michael had escaped MI6 for just over a week. They would be getting desperate to find him now, since he had an awful lot of inside knowledge about them, and nothing to lose by giving it away. Or so MI6 thought. God those morons were annoying when they thought they were right. It made Lola wonder how many times this had happened before. How many times had an innocent man or woman been chased and hounded by MI6 over a simple (well, the situation, she knew, was far from simple, but for the sake of the question, she would call it simple) misunderstanding?

Well, either way, sooner or later, they would start following leads centred on friends and family; anyone Michael might have known who could be hiding him. They were already watching Peter. Lola _really _hoped they weren't watching Arron, but knew that Emma and Gabby were safe from that at CHERUB. No one would be watching Anna, since no one could find her. But, after that, came Lola and Jason. There was no one else on the list really. Maybe one or two others, back in England.

Lola figured out that the few people Michael might have relied on in England would probably be checked out first, to save effort. MI6 searching houses of 'American citizens' wouldn't go down too well with anyone, so it would be safer to go carefully if they were trying to get a search warrant for Lola or Jason's houses.

Lola walked the several streets briskly, to get to the Bridge Office, and the secret, not-so-technologically-advanced entrance. Which was broken. So everyone had to take the _stairs_. Seriously, the MI6 base here in America would win records for its pathetic state.

Lola finally arrived at the office she shared with Jason, and dunked her bag on the desk before heading off to find a coffee machine that hadn't broken down under the strain of twenty or so agents with serious caffeine addictions. Without coffee, the MI6 base in America would've shut down years ago. Of all the technical crisis' that could ever happen, the breakdown of all the coffee machines in the base would be the one that crippled them all the most.

Jason had beaten her to a working coffee machine and was making one when Lola arrived.

"I beat you to it again!" He cheered happily as he took a sip of his drink, "You need to start arriving earlier, if you ever going to get the slightest chance of beating me,"

Lola made a face, "No thanks, I think I'll keep on sleeping in the extra half hour. I'll just kick your butt at everything else instead. That's easy enough, all things considered,"

"Oh yeah? Name ten things you're better at than me!" Jason demanded as they headed back to their office.

Lola pursed her lips thoughtfully, "I'll start with the simple, everyday things, shall I?" Without pausing for Jason to answer, she got started, "I can cook better than you, I can wear six inch stilettos and still walk straight, I can perform martial arts in a skirt just as easily as in trousers, I can get away with wearing a skirt without getting odd looks, I am statistically more lightly to live longer than you are, my first name is less common than yours, I can consume twice as much alcohol as you and still keep a clear head- you don't seemed to be able to hold you drinks very well at all, Jason," She tutted, before continuing, "I can apply a full face of makeup in under a minute without a mirror and not look like a train wreck, I can identify over seventy different types of shoes, heeled or not, from the footprints they leave, I know a multitude of swearwords in over eight languages- that's five more than you, might I add, Jason- if we were sitting on a bus and each had an empty seat next to us, it is twice as lightly that someone would sit next to me than that they would sit next to you, I can pull of the caring, motherly act and not look either gay or a paedophile, I can go a week with the barest minimum of sleep –around two hours a night- and still be able to act as if I'd had nine or ten hours sleep, I-"

"Oh, come on! You're making this all up on the spot!" Jason interrupted, annoyed.

"You're right," Lola conceded, "But it's all perfectly valid and definitely true, so, to add to my list, I am much better at spontaneously making things up without babbling nonsensically, I am less annoying than you, I am a brilliant and skilled diplomat and can kindly insult almost anyone on Earth without them realising until several hours afterwards that I have, giving me ample time to escape their house, city or- one time- country. I think that's a long enough list to be getting on with, don't we. I lost track of how many reasons I gave after about, what, twenty?"

"You only gave sixteen reasons," Jason objected tersely, "Which means that I am a better mathematician than you,"

Lola gave him a look, "You got a B on you maths A level, Jason. I got an A. Not only does that prove that _I_ am in fact, the better at maths, but also that I am your superior in computering, as I bet you've never managed to search through the entire country's databases to find out what grades I got at school,"

"No, I never did manage that, because I didn't have the time. I was too busy going on all of these MI6 missions to bother with that kind of thing, which adds to my list that I have been at MI6 longer than you and I am not a pitiful loser who wastes time on the saddest things possible," Argued Jason.

"Well, I may agree on the not wasting time part, but pitiful loser? I mean, for starters, you're claiming you have a list. You have three points, one of which isn't even true," Lola pointed out.

"Well, both of you seem equally skilled at arguing over the most pointless things possible to argue over," Commander Green snapped.

Lola and Jason spun round, both of them building up a list of angry retorts to fire at her.

"You're not here to argue, you're here to do you _jobs_, so shut up and get back to work, both of you! Every time I walk past this office, I hear some new, equally pointless argument erupting between you. I'm, quite frankly, amazed that you haven't ran out of things to argue about!" The Commander finished.

"We were not arguing! We were having a _discussion_," Lola snapped immediately, "_I _was making a very truthful statement and _Jason_ was replying with his thoughts, rare as they are,"

At the same time, Jason was retorting, "Lola was making all of this stuff up, and I was simply correcting her and trying to deflate her head a bit!"

The two of them rounded on each other again, having found yet _another _topic to argue about. Green threw her hands up in frustration, and backed quietly out.

"I'll leave the two of you to it," She sighed.

* * *

><p>Chapter 14~Andrew<p>

"Oh come on! It'll be fun!" Liam exclaimed, unable to see that I _clearly _wasn't interested.

"Liam, I don't particularly want to skip a whole day of school, go down to London on a mission and get arrested for a _video game_. I have studies, controlled assessments and a life to get on with!" I sighed, and turned back to my desk, where a huge pile of homework had been finished, and only a German essay remained, awaiting its final touches, "Why don't you ask someone else?"

He didn't have to answer that really. We both knew why. Dan and Liam were massively close friends. Or were, until Anna came along. I mean, they're still best friends, but Dan spent most of his time hanging out with Anna, when he was here. I knew how Liam felt-Tom and I had been exactly the same, until Elizabeth. Not that I really minded.

Liam didn't really have anyone else to hang out with now, though. Sure, Tom and I knew him, and he knew us. We were friends, but not close ones, since Dan and I weren't exactly keen on each other- before we met Anna and Emma. Liam had probably already asked Zack, his only other friend besides Dan, by the looks of things.

Liam would probably have asked Tom before me, but Tom wouldn't be able to go on the mission without Elizabeth finding out and gate-crashing it by dragging them clothes shopping. That left Liam's options pretty limited; Jonah, a guy, despite being clever and funny, several years younger than both of us, whom neither of us knew that well, or me, the same age as Liam and someone he's known for a long time.

So I was being forced to endure Liam's pitiful attempts at persuasion, "Oh come on, man! I _promised _that I'd find someone else to go on the mission with me! You can... sightsee?"

"I can look at pictures on the internet of exactly the same things and not have to get arrested for it," I replied as I finished my German essay with a flourish. My homework for the night was finished, and I could get onto other, more important things. Maybe I could figure out how to track down Karlie, since that seemed to be the only way for Anna and Dan to get on with their little 'mission' and get back home. Then Liam wouldn't have to bug me about visiting London.

"Ok then, what are you doing in Geography? Aren't you doing a topic about, i dunno, population. Does overpopulation come into that?" Liam frowned, "Stupid question, it has population in it, of _course _it does. Ok then, so what about homeless people? You can go live a day in the life of someone living on the streets, if you want! Or better still! Get extra points and set up a little project to help the homeless!"

I turned around slowly, "Homeless project! Of course!" I cried, "Liam, you are a genius!"

"I am?" Liam asked me, incredulously, "No offence, Andrew, but I think you must've hit your head a bit too hard in one of your Karate lessons. The only subjects I can get above a B- in is Art, Woodwork and Italian,"

"I didn't have Karate today," I mumbled vaguely, thinking hard. Karlie had once mentioned something about some sort of homeless group to me, on one rare occasion when she had felt like talking about her life. Maybe that was where she was going back to.

"Well, aren't you going to tell me why I'm a genius?" Liam asked after several minutes of silence, during which I continued my intense thinking, trying to remember what else she had said to me.

"Karlie," I told him shortly, grabbing my laptop off the desk and sitting on my bed, "I need to check a few things. Where did Karlie come from?" I demanded.

"Um... somewhere in America?" Liam shrugged.

I tutted, "No, I mean, do you know which orphanage she came from?"

Liam shrugged, "Not a clue,"

"Brilliant. I take it back, you're not a genius," I rolled my eyes and put the computer down, "Ok, how about why she was put in the care home in the first place. Any ideas about that?"

Liam's face lit up, "Yes, actually- she told me she'd burned down this Dasakota member's house- it's her trademark kind of thing and she does it on every house she's visited- and she'd spent the night in a tree, in some park in... Liverpool. She woke up and some police were already on the scene, ready to pick her up,"

I filed away the burning houses thing for later, and picked up my laptop again, "Ok, any idea how long she was in the care home for, before she came here?"

"Not very long, I don't think," Liam shrugged, "What does that matter?"

"Oh not much at all," I told him sarcastically, as I found myself a website containing digital copies of all local newspapers in Liverpool, "Just gives me a rough estimate of how far back I need to go through all these newspapers. I'll go back four months and print from there," I grinned happily at Liam, "Fancy some late night reading? We might find some information on Karlie somewhere in one of them,"

Liam backed away quickly, "No, not really. In fact, you know what? I've got to do some homework right now! I'll talk to you about the London thing later!"

I shrugged to myself; so Liam wasn't going to help out. I'd figured that out already. And it wasn't too much of a hardship, reading so many newspapers. At least afterwards I could claim to know pretty much every event of importance that has happened recently in Liverpool. I went to collect the freshly printed newspapers and set to work.

A couple of hours later and I managed to find another lead on Karlie. I clapped my hands together and smiled grimly. I was going to find a way to locate Karlie, and I was starting to get an inkling of how to do it. Before I could set to work on _that _idea, I needed to do one or two things here and there. Maybe I could boast about it to the others tomorrow morning. I was, at the very least, looking forward to the look of astonished disbelief on their faces.

* * *

><p>Chapter 15~Emma<p>

Andre was looking suspiciously pleased with himself as he made his way over to where the rest of us were (still) hiding to avoid Meryl. It was almost half seven, and everyone but Elizabeth and Tom was sitting in the woods near the red shirts' block. Elizabeth and Tom had already been tracked down and forced into Meryl's office, despite the early hours, so the rest of us were keeping an even-lower-than-usual profile.

"What's with the massively happy smile? It's eight in the morning, I'm exhausted, and there's no way we're going to be able to avoid Meryl all day without skipping classes," Tess groaned.

Andrew waved a thick wad of papers in front of her face, and she jumped backwards, "Watch the face! I _do not _need any more paper cuts on my nose!" She shrieked.

Lilly laughed, "I _told _you not to do it!"

"Yeah, well, it was my brother, and I wasn't going to turn down a chance to argue with him, was I?" Tess retorted.

"Even if, by the sounds of it, _he _won that argument?" Jonah asked sceptically.

Tess shrugged, "It wasn't exactly the greatest moment of my life, but how was I to know you could get paper cuts on your face?"

"Um... common sense, perhaps?" Raine suggested, obviously having guessed what Tess and the others were going on about.

Andrew saw my look of confusion and smiled slightly, "Zack and Tess got into an argument about whether it is possible to get a paper cut on the face or not. Needless to say, Tess lost that argument,"

"I didn't lose! I verbally retreated temporarily!" Tess retorted, having overheard Andrew's comment.

"Of course you did, Tess. I'm sure everyone believes that. How could they possible doubt that you did anything but... how did you put it? 'Verbally retreat'," Liam nodded patronisingly.

"Temporarily," Tess snapped back shortly, sounding slightly sulky.

"Anyway, moving on from that, _I_, unlike the rest of you, have had a breakthrough with our Karlie problem!" Andrew announced, his grin turning ever so slightly smug.

"Of come off it! I don't believe you!" Lilly announced, "Nope! I refuse to believe a word you say. You've just come up with this because I told you that your ideas were rubbish and now you're trying to get back at me!"

Andrew rolled his eyes, "Despite what you might think, Lilly, I do not go about my daily life trying to annoy and prove wrong everyone possible,"

"Yeah," I added, "That's Anna's job, and she's annoying enough at it for ten people,"

Lilly laughed, "Ok, that's true. So then, what's your big idea?" She asked Andrew, "And _please _don't suggest something about breaking into secret files or generally getting into trouble. I've already got three detentions this week, two hundred laps to run _and _Meryl stalking the lot of us. I'm kinda getting worried that I'm going to get marked down under the 'troublemaker' column,"

"Oh shit," Liam cursed sarcastically, "There's a troublemaker column. God helps us all. I'm screwed,"

"You two!" Jonah interrupted quickly; Liam and Lilly, for some reason, seemed to be prepared to argue over the topic of what a troublemaker was and who perfect student was. Both had very limited views on the matter, and we'd heard the full argument several times over.

"Anyway!" Andrew started again, "Here it is. My idea." He waved the sheets of paper around again.

"Oh, very nice. Looks like you've gone OCD on the printing again. Have you made us leaflets and a little power point presentation this time?" Liam asked sarcastically, eyeing the paper warily.

His sarcasm was rewarded with a whack round the head from the said mass of paper. Andrew took a deep breath and continued.

"While you guys spent last night avoiding Meryl to the best of your abilities, _I_, with a couple of hints from Liam, had a brainwave,"

"Wait a second... Liam did something _helpful_?" Tess frowned mockingly.

"Quick," Raine grinned, "Give him whatever he wants, before he starts blackmailing us!"

Liam scowled at them. The rest of us tried not to smile too obviously.

"Well, anyway," Andrew continued, "Karlie told me, ages ago, about this little group she and a couple of her friends had set up a while ago, down in London. Basically, all the homeless kids they could find clubbed together and everyone had to pitch in with either food, money or shelter – I think the two former things were probably stolen, but, well, you never know, right?- and they all looked after each other. So, I thought maybe she'd gone back there, right?" We all nodded and shrugged with varying degrees of understanding and enthusiasm, "So that gave me a vague idea and starting point. However, Liam gave me another, when I asked him," Andrew announced.

He waited dramatically a few seconds. "Well?" He said finally, after a few moments of expectant silence.

"Well what?" Liam asked, confused.

"Aren't any of you going to ask what I asked Liam, or what my other idea was?" Andrew asked despairingly.

"You're enjoying all this attention, aren't you?" I accused him.

Andrew looked at me seriously, "I was up 'til half one last night working on this. I'm feeling slightly underappreciated right now. I think I'm allowed to be as overly dramatic as I feel like,"

I shrugged, "Fair point. Ok then," I sighed, humouring him, "What did you ask Liam and what was your other idea?"

"Well, according to Liam, Karlie came from an orphanage in Liverpool. She got picked up by the police because a day or two earlier, she'd set fire to this guy's house, who was a member of Dasakota, and, well, I don't think he appreciated it all too much. We know she arrived in England less than a year ago, spent several months in London, but got arrested in Liverpool. We don't think she stayed in the orphanage there very long, and she arrived at CHERUB around a month ago. So, I found as many local newspapers in Liverpool as possible in the months between her arriving in England and her arriving at CHERUB, then scanned through them all for any articles on houses being burnt down, or local orphanages. Needless to say, it took me a while," Andrew stopped for breath.

"Only _you _would be insane enough to look through several months worth of newspaper articles," Tess sighed, "Just thinking about that kind of reading makes my head hurt,"

"I hate to admit it, but I'm with you on that," Liam agreed.

"Oh come on you two! A little reading's fun now and then!" Jonah cheered mockingly.

"Yeah, so much fun it's dangerously close to resembling a five thousand word essay on _rocks_," Lilly pitched in sarcastically.

"Or beach transects," I said in helpfully, "Not that I hate reading or anything," I added defensively, when I saw their odd looks.

"Oh, good, I was getting worried that you'd gotten concussion or something. Then we'd have to break cover and get you to the medical unit. Meryl could have spotted us if we had," Liam told me, relieved.

"We could always have just dunked her on some path and ran for it," Tess suggested nonchalantly.

"Gee, thanks. I feel so loved now," I told her sarcastically.

"That's ok!" She replied sweetly.

Andrew coughed to get our attention again, and we turned back to him, "There were a surprising number of articles on houses being burnt down, all in around the same time period- they started a month and a half before Karlie's arrest, and stopped several days afterwards. All of the houses were empty- no one was inside when she burnt them down. There were no witnesses to who started the fire, but at every scene, locals would report seeing a teenage girl they hadn't seen around the neighbourhood before, hanging around at the time of the fire. It's a reasonable guess that Karlie was the girl they all saw, and that she was behind these attacks, making all the owners of these houses members of Dasakota," Andrew continued, "I followed up where she got sent after she was arrested, and the consoler at the orphanage kept notes on her patients online. With a little bit of help from that new CHERUB software I _borrowed _the other day from the ICT room, I was able to get a copy of those notes. It took me _ages _to do mind," He added, making a face, "I'll bet Anna could do it in five seconds. Don't tell her about it, mind. She'll laugh in my face probably. Anyhow, according to Karlie's consoler, she's a bit of a pyromaniac,"

"Which fits in with burning down those people's houses," I nodded, starting to get where this was going.

"Ok, so Karlie burnt people's houses' down, how is this going to help us?" Jonah asked pointedly.

"Remember what Raine said, the other day? About Karlie going to finish off Dasakota? This was how she was doing it," I prompted the others.

Raine's frown slowly faded, "Of course! Andrew, that's brilliant!"

Andrew shrugged modestly, "Not really. It just took a long time and a lot of thinking,"

"Can you lot stop being so high-and-mightly-and-clearly-about-five-steps-ahead-of-our-brains and explain to us why it's 'brilliant'?" Lilly demanded finally.

"Karlie was burning houses down to disrupt Dasakota and generally annoy the hell out of them," Raine began.

"That was what she was doing, before she got picked up," I added in, picking up on Raine's let's-explain-this-to-them-very-slowly-and-patronisingly-to-further-insult-them tone.

"She's gone back out to finish off Dasakota, meaning that she's gone to burn more houses down," Andrew added.

"If we can find and try to keep a track of what she's being doing, we can find out where she is, roughly, and work from there,"

The others looked questioningly towards Andrew.

"And I don't suppose you've found out for us, have you?" Lilly asked hopefully.

Andrew snorted dismissively, "You're kidding, right? That's pretty much reading every newspaper written and posted digitally online in the whole country in over a week. I'm not _that _into reading!"

Lilly groaned, "I suppose that's what the massive wad of paper is, isn't it?"

Andrew grinned slightly, "I'm not that cruel. I've narrowed down the results to only things related to fire, houses and stuff along those lines. It's still a pretty open topic, though, so it's a lot of reading to do. You guys should remember, though, that this _is _just a rough guess of what Karlie will do, and it might just be a dead end. Having said that, pay close attention to reports or newspapers in London. Going back to my first idea- Karlie still has contacts in London, and she might want to go back there because of that,"

I looked at the pile, "If Elizabeth and Tom join us at some point today, and we give them their fair share, then that pile is going to be divided roughly between nine people. That's not so bad, overall,"

Andrew sat down on the ground and the rest of us followed suit. Then, he divided the paper as best he could into nine equal piles, and everyone dived for the one they thought was the smallest. Elizabeth and Tom, naturally, got the biggest piles leftover.

I picked up the printed off article at the top of my pile.

_The Yorkshire News_

_Local Survey Says That Up To 58.327% of Statistics Are Made Up On the Spot_

I groaned inwardly.


	5. Newspaper Articles And The Local Co-op

SORRY! I know, I haven't updated in AGES! But I have an excuse! (kinda... ok... no, I don't have an excuse...)

Anywho, I will try to update again soon!

* * *

><p>Chapter 16~Anna<p>

"Daaaaaaaaaaan!" I yelled, looking mournfully at the contents of the fridge.

"What?" He yelled back from the other room.

"We're out of orange juice!" I told him.

"There's apple juice in the door!" He replied.

"I don't like apple juice!" I called back.

I heard him getting up and footsteps on the floor behind me, "Jesus Christ, Anna, how fussy can you get?" Dan demanded, exasperated.

"Very fussy," I shrugged.

Dan moved me out of the way of the fridge and look inside, "There's no cheese left either," He sighed.

"Thank God. We won't have to eat cheese on toast for lunch then," I sighed, relieved.

"Hey! It's not _that _bad!" Dan protested.

"It is if you have taste buds," I told him frankly.

Dan rolled his eyes, "Whatever. Either way, one of us is going to have to get some more food,"

"Yeah. Maybe we could get a KFC or something," I agreed vaguely, shutting the fridge door.

Dan was looking pointedly at me.

"What?" I demanded.

"It's _your _turn to do the shopping!" Dan reminded me frustratedly.

I groaned, "Oh come on! I've been reading my ass off over there while you sit around and _cook_! Why do _I_ have to go get the shopping!"

"Because," Dan told me, going over to one of the still intact draws in the kitchen and rifling through them, "I've already done the shopping twice over, and _you _need some exercise. And fresh air,"

"If I need fresh air, I'll open a window," I told him scathingly, as he handed over a twenty pound note.

"We need orange juice, cheese, ham, some more tea bags, two cartons of milk, a new loaf of bread, some crisps and maybe a few packets of biscuits," Dan told me, pushing me towards the door.

"Would you like fries with that?" I asked him, my sarcasm all too clear.

"Good idea!" Dan told me cheerfully, "Get some of those microwaveable chips while you're down there!"

"Brilliant!" I muttered under my breath, "We set off on a vitally important mission to prove that my Dad's innocent, and what do I end up doing? Buying microwaveable chips from the local Co-op. Fantastic,"

"Enjoy yourself!" Dan waved me off cheekily.

I gave him a withering look and set off.

The co-op was only a few streets away, so it didn't take me long to get there. I grabbed a basket thing from the stand by the door and tried to remember the list of things Dan wanted me to get.

"Orange juice," I muttered, heading over to the fridge isles.

I found the orange juice and plonked it in my basket before considering my mental list again. Before I could move onto the next item, however, I heard someone behind me.

"Anna? Or is it Emma? I could never tell the two of you apart..."

I swung around curiously, and saw a vaguely familiar girl my age standing a few metres away looking gobsmacked.

"Um... hi?" I asked questioningly.

"Holy crap! It _is _you! I can't believe it! Holy shit! Everyone's been looking everywhere for you!"

"They... who?" I asked, my brain not making any connections to this random person.

It was however, making other connections, and alarm bells were starting to ring. I had been recognised. Not good.

The girl blushed slightly, "You really don't remember me, do you? I'm Penny? From your PE class?"

"Oh... um... hi," I muttered awkwardly, my brain _finally _remembering something vague about her.

"What are you doing here, though?" Penny asked, confused but curious.

Right, brain, now would be an excellent time to come up with a truly brilliant excuse that will explain absolutely everything and not sound at all suspicious.

"Um... shopping?" I mumbled. Sometimes, my brain defies all laws of its inner genius and comes out with truly the best excuses ever. Well, I'm hoping it will one day. It hasn't yet.

Penny frowned, "No, I meant, like, why are you _here_? It's been all over the school- you and your sisters, like, ran away from that care home or something. What happened?"

Well... shit. Brain, please come up with something good.

"Um... we didn't run away," I said defensively, "We were... um..."

Yes. It has just been proven. There is no was on Earth I could become physically _more_ stupid. Penny was giving me a weird look.

"Um... our Uncle's taking care of us for now," I threw at her, "After a few days there, they managed to get into contact with him," I frowned, pretending to be confused, "What did they tell you at school?"

Penny shrugged, "Well, everyone heard about your Dad," She muttered awkwardly, "And then about you going into care. And then, a week afterwards, there were these police officers that came into school and started asking everyone who knew you where you might go if you ran away, and if anyone knew where you were,"

"Wow. Weird. I've been at my Uncle's the whole time," I exclaimed.

Penny was starting to look embarrassed, and I felt slightly sorry for her.

"Anyway, I've gotta go now," I shrugged and smiled apologetically, "See you later,"

"Ok, um, bye," Penny mumbled.

I waved slightly, headed down another isle, ditched the basket and walked as quickly as possible to the exit. As soon as I was out of the shop, I pelted down the street, thankful that I wouldn't have to run for miles to get back.

"Woah, what's up with you?" Dan asked as I slammed the back door shut and tried to get control of my breathing, "And where's the shopping?"

"Someone spotted me in the shop," I panted breathlessly, "Someone knew who I was,"

"Who?" Dan asked, "What did she say? What did _you _say?"

"A girl from my old school. Apparently, police officers went around the school asking if anyone knew where me, Emma and Gabby were. I told her that we were staying at our Uncle's house. That's not going to hold up long if she tells anybody else, though," I groaned.

"She definitely didn't know that you're staying here, though? She didn't follow you or anything?" Dan demanded.

"Jesus! Suspicious much? Right now she'll be confused about what the police were doing at my old school, and confused about the way I was acting. She might be suspicious but she spent two hours a week with thirty other kids in the same class as me. She barely knows me. She's not going to start stalking me,"

Dan held up his hands defensively, "Just asking," he told me.

I sighed and sat down on a chair, "I didn't even get any orange juice, after all of that," I complained.

Dan groaned, "I suppose that was our subtle hint for me to go get some?"

I beamed and leapt to my feet, "You practically read my mind!" I cried, handing over the money he'd given me, and shoving him towards the door.

"You know, I'm half wondering whether or not you were making all of this up as a ploy to get me to go buy the food," Dan mumbled grumpily.

* * *

><p>Chapter 17~Andrew<p>

"How did you talk us all into this again?" Liam groaned as he chucked another newspaper on the 'useless' pile, and grabbed the next sheet of paper from his own pile.

I rubbed my eyes, which were sore from reading so much, and glanced up at him briefly, "I didn't. You just kind of went along with the whole idea. You seemed to be more interested in the missing half of school part than the reading printed off newspaper part though,"

"Oh, really," Liam muttered sarcastically, "I wonder why that would be,"

"Chill out, Liam," Tess sighed, "Just remember- if it wasn't for this, we'd all be sitting in double maths, or something of the sort,"

Liam frowned, "Fair point,"

Emma and I shared a fleeting look of exasperation, before I returned to the current news article I was reading. Lilly and Jonah had left around two hours ago- not wanting to get into trouble for missing school. I wasn't exactly thrilled to be missing it either, but since this whole thing _had _been my idea, I had been banned from any 'skiving attempts' as Liam was saying. The irony of that wasn't exactly lost on any of us.

Elizabeth and Tom hadn't turned up, so we were forced to presume that they had deserted us for school. Or, as Tess had suggested, were being held captive by Meryl, who was at this very moment talking to Anna and Dan, threatening to kill Elizabeth and Dan. The former of those two was, in my opinion, clearly the most plausible. Tess disagreed with me on that.

"On the other hand," Liam started up again, "It won't exactly be hard for Meryl to join the dots and realise we're all up to something. And shit is going to go _down _when she does,"

"You are such a buzz kill sometimes, Liam," Tess moaned, "Just enjoy the moment for once in your life! I thought you and Dan were supposed to be the _fun _guys!"

Liam looked indignant, but refrained from replying. I think he sensed that Tess was willing to argue over every pointless thing possible, just so she could win an argument.

"Oooh! Guys!" Raine cheered excitedly, "I found something!"

We looked up, none of us bothering to move, since there had already been several false alarms (Tess messing around and Liam had misread _fleece_ of all words).

"Some fifty-three year old guy named George Clampton, living somewhere on the outskirts of Ipswich. It says something about other fires, too," Raine went on, regardless of our somewhat unenthusiastic response. She frowned as she read on, "And something about arrests,"

"Where is Ipswich exactly?" Liam asked, groaning.

Raine shrugged, "Somewhere down South. How should I know?"

"Has anyone got a map on them?" Tess asked, and then held up her hand, "No, wait! Don't need it!" She patted her pockets down, and eventually pulled out her phone, "I love technology," She sighed happily.

She typed her question quickly into Google, while the rest of us looked on in curiosity. A few seconds later, the results popped up. Tess chose the first- a link to Google Maps.

"An hour and forty three minutes from London, apparently," She told us a few seconds later, "I reckon that's close enough for Karlie to go out from London, burn down half the house and get back, in less than half a day,"

"What does the article say about the other fires?" I turned back to Raine, remembering what she had said previously.

Raine picked up the paper, reread it and shrugged, "Not much, only that police suspected it was linked to previous house fires in the cities around London, anyone with any leads or evidence should come forward with information, crap like that. And one mention of a mysterious girl seen hanging about the street, in the hour or so that the house set fire. Looks like we might have found her. And a suspicious sentence about arrests at the previous fires,"

I thought quickly, "Other house fires in the cities around London," I muttered, "Right, ditch any newspapers from the North, or West of England. Karlie won't have set any houses on fire around there, I shouldn't think,"

"So now you tell us!" Liam groaned, "I've been reading all of the articles from Northumbria!"

I shrugged defensively, "I _did _say focus on the ones around London,"

"No you didn't!" Liam exclaimed indignantly.

"Um, he kind of did, Liam," Emma sighed, "But I don't suppose you were listening, were you?"

"Admittedly, no, I wasn't. If Andrew starts talking for more than a minute I presume its nerd speak, boring or something to do with lessons. I usually stop paying attention then,"

I raised an eyebrow, "Ouch," I told him.

"Well it's true!" Liam argued.

"Yes," Raine agreed, sighing, "But you could've have broken it to him in a nicer way,"

I wasn't entirely sure whether Raine was meaning to be sympathetic or insulting. I opted for not saying anything until I'd figured out which it was. By the looks of it, though, Tess and Liam had taken the insulting option, since they were now laughing at me. Emma was trying not to laugh. Raine was looking serious still. It was probably meant as insulting then, I decided.

"Thank you _so _much for your moral support, Raine," I said sarcastically.

"No problem, Andrew. I'm glad you appreciated it," Raine told me solemnly.

I narrowed my eyes at her, trying to tell whether she was mocking me or not. Raine stared right back at me.

After a few seconds, Emma folded her arms across her chest and tutted, "Insults aside, we _still _need to get _this _done," She pointed at the piles of paper.

Liam and Tess raised their eyebrows, a silent challenge to Emma's authority. Raine and I shrugged at each other and carried on our staring competition. Raine _had _after all kind of, sort of, maybe insulted me.

"Right," Emma snapped, seeing she would have to do a lot more to motivate us, "Liam, _you_ can go through Elizabeth and Tom's pile, and take out any newspapers that come from London, or around London. Don't complain!" She glared at him as he opened his mouth to protest, "Do it. And be grateful I'm not making you _read _the newspapers! Tess, you go through our unread piles, and do the same. I want every newspaper from, or around, London in a pile in the middle by half eleven!" She ordered.

I checked my watch. It was around ten to eleven now, so they had forty minutes- a bit much if you asked me. I raised my eyebrows at Emma, "Giving them an easy time are you?" I asked quietly.

Emma smirked, "No. It won't take more than twenty minutes for them to do that, but they'll feel like they've achieved something at least. Well, maybe not after a further hour or so of reading newspapers, but still," She looked at Raine and me, "You two can collect up any of the discarded newspapers and chuck them discretely into a recycling bin,"

"I don't see you doing a lot of work right now," Tess muttered grumpily at Emma.

"That's because someone has to make sure _you and Liam _are actually doing something, Tess," Emma told her bluntly.

Tess scowled and went back to her newspapers sulkily. Emma looked back to us, "Well, what are you waiting for? Get to work!"

I smiled at her, "Of course, madam," I told her, climbing to my feet, "right away!"

* * *

><p>Chapter 18~Emma<p>

By lunchtime, we were fairly confident that we'd found all of the newspapers to do with Karlie's fires, and decided that enough was enough for today. Andrew stashed the papers away in his room and we headed down to lunch eagerly.

Lilly, Jonah, Elizabeth and Tom were already sitting at our usual table when we arrived.

"How was Meryl this morning?" I asked Elizabeth as I sat down next to her.

"Hellish, as per usual. I think she used to be an interrogator in some war or other. Seriously, that woman could terrorize the whole country into... giving up makeup!" Elizabeth sighed.

I smiled slightly, "You know, for some people, that wouldn't be too difficult,"

"Yeah, because they're hopeless pushovers," Elizabeth retorted.

"Oh you did not!" I gasped with mock indignity.

Elizabeth laughed at my expression, but sobered quickly, "How are you guys gonna explain to your teachers- and Meryl, probably- why you skipped the whole of morning lessons?"

"Um... I'm hoping a massive apology and maybe some excuse about my alarm clock not working?" I suggested.

"That is terrible!" Elizabeth cried, "Try, not turning up to class ever again and avoiding every adult within a ten mile radius of you? That's the only way you'll get through this unscathed!"

"Oh, yes, Elizabeth, brilliant idea," I told her sarcastically, "I'll just abandon my GCSE's and so on. It doesn't matter about all these incredibly important exams- I'll flunk them all and work in McDonalds for the rest of my life,"

"Hey! McDonalds does good chips! Don't diss!" Raine interrupted, "Oh, and, if you're planning to ditch your education, Emma, I advise practising the phrase, 'Would you like fried with that?'"

I whacked her on the arm, "Raine! I am not going to do a runner on my education, unlike my sister! I intend to actually make something of myself in the real world!"

"I'm sure you're sister would be delighted to hear your opinion on how she treats her education, and what she's gonna end up being when she's older," Tess snorted.

"Hey! It's not just my sister!" I backtracked, "It's Dan too! And Karlie!"

"Whatever you say," Elizabeth agreed, patting me patronizingly on the back.

I glared at her and went back to my food, ignoring most of the conversation.

After lunch we went to lessons, as agreed. I managed to get through double maths and half of biology before I was pulled out for an appointment at Meryl's office. After leaving Elizabeth strict instructions to take notes on anything new we covered in lessons, I threw my stuff in my bag and trudged reluctantly to Meryl's office.

Andrew and Liam were already there and waiting. I sat down next to them, tapping my foot impatiently. Tess arrived soon after.

"So what's our story?" Tess whispered as we waited.

"Um... spontaneous picnic?" Liam whispered back.

Raine turned up then, and made us all 'squish up a little bit' so she could sit down too.

"I was thinking of a more... realistic excuse," Tess tutted when we were all finally comfortable again.

"Hey! Spontaneous picnic is very realistic! For me, at least!" Liam argued.

"Yes, for you and Tess, it would be a perfect excuse," Andrew sighed, "Neither of you seem to care about your education at all. However, for us three, it seems reckless and irresponsible,"

"And you can bet those are the two words Meryl will use to describe us missing our morning lessons," I muttered.

"Really? How much are you willing to bet?" Liam asked with an evil glint in his eye.

"Ten quid," I told him, "Ten quid she calls us reckless and irresponsible,"

"Deal," Liam replied, "I can spend it on chocolate when I go to London for my mission,"

Meryl let us into her office about three seconds afterwards, and we all got up unenthusiastically and went into her office. She was sitting behind her desk calmly, her eyes narrowed suspiciously at us.

"Are any of you going to tell me where you were this morning?" Meryl asked, her tone accusing yet expectant at the same time.

"Well, Tess and I were on a spontaneous picnic," Liam began, "And Raine went down with the flu last night- she just got better in time for lunch, which I think is _very _suspicious, personally. Emma and Andrew were... having a private morning," Liam trailed off with a smirk.

I elbowed him in the chest. Hard. "Liam dragged us all out at five this morning and tied us to a tree in the middle of the woods and refused to untie us until lunch!" I announced, giving the idiot my best death glare possible.

"Both stories are completely made up, I suppose. Is there any chance that you will tell me what you were really doing?" Meryl demanded.

We shifted uncomfortably, knowing we couldn't say a thing. I groaned internally at the thought of the punishments Meryl had no doubt devised to torture us for the next week or so.

"I thought not," Meryl sighed, exasperated, after a minute and a half of unnerving silence, "Can you tell me _where _you were?" She asked, eyeing us suspiciously. We kept silent again, most of us looking at the floor awkwardly. No doubt if we told Meryl where we had been, we'd never get a moment of peace there again. "Where you off campus?" Meryl continued the questioning.

I considered the question for a second- it didn't exactly give anything away. The others had evidentially come to the same conclusion, and we all shook our heads meekly.

"So why can't you tell me where you were?" Meryl asked, with an innocent tone of curiosity. Behind that tone was a vast amount of suspicion and cunning. Clearly, giving an answer to the last question had been a mistake. None of us replied this time.

Meryl sighed again, slightly impatiently, "I've given you all a month on kitchen duty and a fifty hours of gardening as punishment. Next time, I'll be harsher," She said dismissively.

We took it silently, but inside it was obvious that everyone was groaning and cursing Meryl. _Kitchen duty _for a _month_! Most people who skived (although, trust me, there aren't many) got a week on cleaning duty and a couple of laps!

Meryl waved a hand towards the door, telling us we could escape back to lessons. We all stumbled eagerly towards it, desperate to get away and voice our complaints.

"Oh, Emma?" Meryl called, a slightly calculating edge to her tone.

I groaned in my head and turned around, "Yeah?"

"Your sister was spotted earlier today," Meryl announced, looking sharply at me, "One of your old school friends recognised her,"

Despite knowing that Meryl was watching me keenly, I couldn't help the brief look of panic I sent at Andrew. If Anna had been spotted, Meryl would probably be sending a small army of people to search the area. Anna and Dan wouldn't be able to hide forever. The others, waiting in the doorway, squirmed slightly. Biting my lip and hoping Meryl hadn't caught the look I'd given Andrew, I tried to act... marginally happier.

"That's... brilliant! When was she seen? _Where_ was she seen? Was there any sign of Dan or Karlie with her?" I asked.

"She was in a Co-op, on the outskirts of Manchester," Meryl said, glaring at me. I winced internally. She'd seen the look. She had _definitely _seen the look. I was doomed. "The girl who spotted her said that Anna was alone- she wasn't with a boy or girl of Dan or Karlie's description, at the very least. This all happened this morning- I received the news just over an hour ago,"

"Do the police have any ideas about where she's... staying?" At least I could try and warn Anna about where they would be looking.

"Well, the Co-op was suspiciously near some old, abandoned houses that are due to be demolished sometime this year," Meryl noted casually.

All I could honestly say at that moment was thank _God _Anna and Dan hadn't where they were hiding in their emails otherwise I'm sure my expression would have said it all. As it was, I simply frowned and made a mental note to email Anna later and hope she wasn't staying anywhere near old houses.

Meryl seemed to sense she'd gotten all she could –for now, anyway- and dismissed us after that. Once we were out of earshot, we started talking immediately.

"Do you think they really _did _see Anna?"

"Where was Dan, then?"

"Why was she stupid enough to get spotted?"

"How long do you reckon they can hide from Meryl _now_?"

"Guys!" I snapped, "So Meryl has heard that Anna was seen in a shop. She said the witness was an old school friend. Anna and I were never close to anyone at school, and even if we were, it's been almost half a year! Meryl has to take into account that whoever saw Anna might be mistaken. She's not going to storm the entirety of Manchester city on the statement of one teenager," At least, I seriously hoped not, "What _we _need to do now, is warn Anna and Dan that some police officers or something along the lines, will be poking around some old, abandoned houses, so that they know they need to look out! If we're lucky, no one actually spotted them, and Meryl is calling our bluff, and was just trying to get a reaction from us,"

The others kept a sceptical silence as we walked back to our lessons. I was just about to split off from the group and head to my biology lesson, when Liam stopped suddenly.

"Do you know what? I don't believe Meryl said the words 'reckless' or 'irresponsible' once during that whole conversation!" He exclaimed, sounding fakely surprised.

I grumbled unintelligibly under my breath and glared at him.


	6. Phone Calls At Two In The Morning

SORRRYYYYYYYYYYYY! I MEANT TO POST EARLIER! but i recently discovered this epical american tv show called Supernatural

it is, as i have just said, epical. I am OBSESSED!

but anyhow, sorry, once again, for taking so long to post! here's some more anyhow;

* * *

><p>Chapter 19~Emma<p>

We were back to reading newspapers by the end of the school day, and this time, Elizabeth and Tom had graced us with their presence.

"Ok, so basically, what we've learned today is...?" Lilly asked after half an hour.

"Um... that Karlie has violent tendencies, we should never knowingly anger her and that she also may possibly be a pyromaniac," Raine replied with a smile.

"We've also learnt," Andrew piped up, "That Karlie is probably to most definitively living somewhere in London, so, if we want to get in touch somewhere, that's where we need to look,"

Liam looked up as he heard this, a smug grin on his face, "Do you know? I do recall that _I _am going on a mission to London _tomorrow_. And you know what? There _is _still one place left for that trip," He looked pointedly at Andrew, who threw his arms up in despair.

"I can't believe you!" Andrew cried, "It's like you just set this whole thing up in order to convince me to go to London with you on this stupid mission!"

Liam smiled evilly, "Well, I can't say I actually _did _set anything up, but I have _got _to admit, it really _was _a good way to convince you,"

"Great," Andrew groaned, "You realise, though, we're not going to be able to go shop for some rubbishy video games or whatever- we'll be looking around for Karlie the whole time. We probably won't even have enough time to find her! There are _loads _of places she could be!"

Liam shrugged, "Sometimes, Andrew, you gotta take one for the team. Besides- missing out on buying video game is worth it if I actually manage to drag your lazy butt all the way down to London,"

I could tell Liam was enjoying this way more than he should have been. Well, the argument had to be settled one way or another.

"Guys, guys," I interrupted, "What you've got to do now is make sure that you still _can _go. After our little temporary disappearing act this morning, Meryl's suspicious. Liam's already signed up to go so that's ok, but..." I trailed off, "Andrew if you want to go – and I'm not forcing you to, but if you _do _want to go- then your gonna have to be very careful not to tip Meryl off on what you're going to do,"

Andrew made a face "Couldn't you take _anyone _else, Liam?" He moaned, "I've already missed half of today's lessons!"

Liam shrugged, "There's less satisfaction in forcing Jonah to go, and I'm not going with a girl," He paused for a second, then, seeing our faces, added in a cautious, "No offence, or anything,"

After a few more minutes of deep thought, Andrew groaned and nodded reluctantly, "Fine, I'll go with you. But this probably isn't going to help us find Karlie- London is a massive city and Karlie could be anywhere,"

I smiled, "Thanks, Andrew," I told him, before getting down to business, "right. First things first- we need to warn Anna and Dan about Meryl possibly sending a SWAT team to go find them. Then Andrew and Liam need to go sort out things with the trip tomorrow,"

"I second that. But can I add? I suggest you lot all lay low a while and don't do anything that will either get you into trouble or look suspicious," Tom agreed, "If anything needs doing, maybe you should ask Elizabeth, Jonah, Lilly or me to do it instead,"

"Or... we could play even safer and ask Zack to do everything for us," Tess suggested evenly.

We all looked at her in surprise, "You're volunteering your brother into this?" Raine asked incredulously.

Tess laughed, "No. I'm saying, we can get him to do all the suspicious stuff for us, and then just lay the blame on him. Meryl will try to find out what he knows about Anna, Dan and Karlie, or why he's 'helping them', when he knows zilch about it. We get what we need done, and Meryl gets nowhere,"

"Nice thought," Lilly said thoughtfully, "But it seems a little unfair on Zack- unleashing the full wrath of Meryl on him,"

"I, unfortunately, have to second that," Jonah sighed.

Tess sighed, "And there I was hoping to get my brother into even more trouble, just to piss him off. Darn,"

Elizabeth grinned, "Well, if you're so eager, we could always just use that as our backup plan, right guys?"

"Ok, fine," Liam agreed, "But let's just hope we don't _need _a backup plan to our first, non-existent plan,"

"Hey! The plan isn't non-existent!" I protested, "It's more of a... work-in-progress thing,"

Liam looked at me sceptically, "Ok, so what have you got so far?"

"Um... figure out a way to keep in contact with Karlie, without getting her caught (so no phones or anything- we'll probably just give her the email address and password, so she can talk to Anna and Dan too) you guys find Karlie in London, Anna and Dan tell us properly why they needed to talk to Karlie, Anna and Dan then tell us their 'plan'. While doing all of that we act natural and avoid Meryl," I shrugged, "I reckon that's a sort of vaguely alright kind of plan, don't you?"

"Yeah, you just need a bit more detail on the 'finding Karlie' part," Elizabeth pointed out unhelpfully.

I gave her a withering glance, "Well thank you, Einstein, how about some genius ideas from you?"

Elizabeth shrugged, "Hey, I comment helpfully but only occasionally. The genius ideas have to come from someone else,"

I rolled my eyes, "I'm off to warn Anna and Dan. Maybe you'll have come up with something by the time I've done that,"

* * *

><p>Chapter 20~Anna<p>

"Ok, that is the last time you go shopping anywhere you have ever been in your life," Dan announced as he dumped two shopping bags down on the table and started unpacking.

I climbed to my feet and started helping out, "What do you mean?"

"I mean, just as I was heading out, I saw a police man arrive," Dan told me, handing me the butter and orange juice and turning me towards the fridge.

"Could be a coincidence," I suggested hopefully, opening the fridge and trying to find space to put the stuff.

"I highly doubt it. I didn't notice anything that would give a police officer a reason to be there," Dan sighed as he leaned around me, grabbed the orange juice from my hand, turned it the right way up and put it in the fridge door, "Besides, coincidences don't usually turn out to _be _coincidences when you're on the run and have many high-up-and-powerful people trying to find you,"

I grinned as I closed the fridge door, "Gee, you make us sound so unimportant,"

Dan shrugged, "It's Meryl, and she was willing to have someone tail you all around campus to make sure you didn't try to run away. Then you did, along with Karlie and I. I think it's safe to expect that she's taken about half of the army's best men and started her own personal man hunt or something,"

I made a face as I headed back through to the kitchen, "I think she has some sort of problem. Like, a _serious _problem. Some sort of drama complex? Is there some sort of mental thing that causes people to be completely and overly dramatic about almost everything possible?"

Dan frowned, "Google it," He shrugged eventually.

"Yeah, I would," I sighed, "but that would seem extremely weird and kinda stalkerish." I brooded in silence for a few minutes, before picking my laptop up and switching it on, "I think I'll just continue wondering for the rest of my long and incredibly sad life. It'll be one of those mysteries that you never find out. Like, there was this teacher, at my old school, and for the life of me, I couldn't figure out if he was gay or not. Seriously- no one could. Some of the staff could swear he had a girlfriend, but then again, the other half of the staff swears he doesn't. I doubt anyone in the whole school actually knows apart from him. It's one of those things in life that have no actual importance or relevance to anything, but the question will haunt you forever,"

Dan gave me a look, "You are incredibly strange. You realise that, right?"

"I have been told before," I said cheerfully, "Personally, I think people just say that because they're jealous of my amazingness,"

Dan laughed, "Or maybe they're just telling the truth,"

"Ouch!" I gasped in mock hurt, "Dan, how could you say such a thing!"

Dan sat down in the chair next to me as I typed in my password, "Trust me, Anna, I'm sure my words have done nothing to dent your ego,"

"Hmmm, suppose not," I said brightly, "I'll check the email address and then try and find anything about Karlie,"

Dan took the laptop off me and started typing, "Nope, _my _turn to laze around doing nothing. _You, _on the other hand, have got some cooking to do,"

"Oh come on!" I groaned, sulking back into the kitchen and trying to find something easy to cook, "You used up the last of the soup last night too! Now I actually have to _cook _something,"

"I look forward to your impending struggle," Dan cackled.

"Bite me," I snapped back, grabbing the bread from the table and the ketchup from the fridge, "I present to you a masterpiece!" I declared to Dan, shoving the ketchup sandwich under his nose.

"Dude! What is that?" Dan wrinkled his nose, "God! That's disgusting,"

I sighed, "I know right- it was one of Gabby's obsessive foods. On the other hand, it's dead easy to make!"

"Well, I'm not eating this," Dan said stubbornly.

I sighed, "No, I'm not going to either, admittedly... but what exactly am I supposed to do with that now?"

"...you could always add cheese on top and attempt a malformed, probably not very nice tasting pizza," Dan suggested.

"... well, it sounds easier than actually cooking!" I decided cheerfully, and headed off to find some cheese.

As Dan had predicted, however, the 'pizza' wasn't very nice. At all. In fact, that whole episode ended in our experimented food being spat into the bin and crossed off our things-we-need-to-try-eating list forever.

After that experience, I made ham sandwiches and told Dan if he didn't like ham he could stuff himself. Dan cautiously attempted to eat the food, waited until I was distracted and made himself a cheese one and chucked the ham one out. I hadn't thought the sandwiches were _that _bad... ish...

Eventually, Dan switched off the laptop and we 'closed' the 'windows' upstairs before winding up our delightful little wind-up lamp (Dan still hadn't gotten that freaking replacement light bulb). We pulled out our sleeping bags and the multiple cushions/mats that we used to make sleeping on the floor bearable.

"Prepare to suffocate slowly," I warned Dan, "I'm taking my shoes and socks off!"

Dan grinned, "I'd give you a warning too, but I've already taken them off!"

"Oh God! I can smell them too!" I cried jokingly, wafting the air in front of my face.

I pulled my jumper off and climbed into my sleeping bag. I'd given up on pyjamas- I didn't have a pair warm enough for an abandoned house with no heating. Dan switched off the wind-up lamp and climbed into his own sleeping bag.

"Night Dan," I mumbled, pulling my pillow over my head (the house got all creepy and creaky around three o'clock-ish, and it usually woke me up, so I was taking steps).

"Night Anna," Dan replied sleepily.

We lay in silence for a few minutes. I lifted my head up suddenly, "Dan?"

"Mmf?"

"Did you check the email account?"

"Ummm... nooooo,"

I tutted, "You see, this is why _you _cook and _I_ use the laptop," I sighed, "I'll check in the morning. I can't be arsed now,"

Dan didn't give a reply. I took an educated guess and presumed he was asleep. I rolled my eyes and went back to hiding under my pillow again.

* * *

><p>Chapter 21~Anna<p>

A loud, incredibly annoying buzzing sound woke me up. I stuck my head out of my sleeping bag, and blinked groggily at my surroundings.

"Phone!" Dan groaned, from somewhere under a pile of blankets and cushions.

"I had no idea," I grumbled sarcastically, sitting up.

"Answer it!" Dan cried, "I'm trying to sleep,"

I stretched out a hand and grabbed the phone my Dad had given me. Peter was calling. It was two in the morning.

"Why hello Peter? How are you? Dan and I were just enjoying a nice nap before we were so rudely awoken," I told him grouchily.

"Now's not exactly the time for complaints, Anna. I need to know where you are," Peter replied tightly.

His tone should've told me to be serious, but it was some time in the early morning, I was tired and had just been woken up. I wasn't going to give straight answers, "Um... in my sleeping bag, not fully conscious," I switched to speaker phone as Dan sat up, so that he could join in our dysfunctional-to-say-the-very-least conversation.

"This isn't a joke, Anna, this is important! I need to know exactly where you are! Now!" Peter snapped.

"Sheesh, calm down," I sighed, rubbing my eyes slightly, "Some abandoned houses that are due to be demolished at some point, on the outskirts of Manchester,"

Peter let loose a string of swear words.

"Wow," I muttered after he finished, "That was impressive. You show promise, Peter,"

Dan hit me on the arm warningly. I took it to mean something along the lines of stop-being-a-moron-Anna-something-is-obviously-wrong.

"What is it, Peter? What's wrong?" Dan asked, taking the phone from me.

"Listen, the two of you, don't put any lights on, whatever you do. You need to pack up and leave now! And if you want to go back to living in that house anytime soon, you need to make sure that there is no sign that you were ever there! And for Christ's sake, do it all quietly!" Peter instructed.

"Ok, dramatic much?" I rolled my eyes.

"Look, I don't know how, but Meryl's found out roughly the area where you and Dan are hiding, and from that information she made a reasonable guess at the exact area you're staying. Guess where that is?" Peter demanded.

"An abandoned housing estate, due to be demolished?" Dan asked.

"An abandoned housing estate due to be demolished," Peter agreed, "And now she's got the whole of the Manchester police force, half of MI5 and several MI6 agents heading towards that estate as fast as they can. This happened about four hours ago. I found out half an hour ago. They're probably already there,"

"Shit!" I groaned, "That girl who saw me yesterday!" I scrambled out of my sleeping bag, pulled on my jumper, socks and shoes and started packing up my sleeping bag.

"You let yourself get spotted?" Peter exclaimed unbelievingly.

"Hey, it was a girl I barely knew from my old school, which I haven't been to in over six months! Ish," I snapped defensively.

"Quit being defensive and pack!" Dan hissed at me, grabbing our stuff from around the room and shoving it into his backpack.

"I am not being defensive!" I replied, offended.

Dan gave me a withering look. I stuck my tongue out at him, then, "Ouch! I stubbed my freaking toe!"

"The two of you hurry up and get out already! I had to drive to the middle of nowhere to phone you and make sure that I wasn't being overheard. I'm still only ninety-five percent sure that no one's listening in!"

"Dan, sort out the temporary kitchen!" I ordered, "I'll make sure there's nothing of ours upstairs,"

Dan finished strapping his sleeping bag to his backpack and dashed into the kitchen, only popping his around the corner to say, "Hide any rubbish in the back garden and take out the new light bulb- no abandoned house has a new light bulb! And take the boards off the windows upstairs!"

"Yeah, whatever, will do," I sighed, taking out the light bulb and running up the stairs.

I took out the boards on the upstairs windows at the back of the house quickly, shivering as the cold night breeze attacked my hands, face and neck. There was just enough light for me to squint around the room and deem it empty of mine and Dan's things.

I headed into the other room, suffering a mini heart attack only once, when I saw an overly large shadow at the end of the corridor, which turned out to be a half open door. I needed to stop watching creepy horror movies when I was living in a creepy abandoned house. It wasn't good for my sanity.

I crept through to the rooms at the front of the house, that lead onto the street and cautiously removed the boards from the windows, half expecting someone to be standing outside, shining a torch up at me and yelling that they'd found us. I tossed the boards carelessly to the floor and peered out, trying to spot anyone that might be looking for us.

Thankfully, there didn't seem to be anyone on out street, but a couple of streets down, I spotted the beams of torches flashing around the street. I double checked all the rooms for any stuff Dan and I might've left lying around, then raced back downstairs.

I arrived to find Dan attacking his shoulder bag, whilst arguing with Peter; "It's all alright for you to tell us to get up and pack and get out in less than three minutes! You're in the middle of a field or something!"

"Exactly!" Peter retorted, as I pried Dan's hands off the bag and closed it for him, "I'm in a field freezing slowly to death while I wait for you two to pack up and get the hell out of there!"

I handed Dan his bag back, then collected my backpack and spare shoulder bag. Dan collected his own backpack and picked up the phone from the floor.

"It's your lucky day, Peter! We're packed up, so you're not going to freeze to death today!"

"Brilliant!" Peter replied sarcastically, "It took you long enough!"

"Yeah, yeah, quit your whining, we're going!" I sighed, trying to quietly pull the table back from the back door. I paused, "Actually, where exactly _are_ we going?"

There was a moment of silence on the other side of the phone, "... I'd been focusing more on the getting-out-unscathed part," Peter admitted.

"Helpful guy, aren't you Peter," I sighed.

"Is there some park or something nearby that you can camp in?" Peter suggested.

"Yes," I said sarcastically, having successfully shifted the table and opened the door, "Because illegally camping in an open space very obviously, less than a mile away from Meryl and her personal SWAT team is possibly the most ingenious idea I have ever heard of in my short but unusually eventful life,"

"Stop being sarcastic Anna. I'm freezing, in the middle of nowhere and I've yet to go to sleep," Peter groaned.

I felt momentarily guilty, "Sorry. Just woken up. Crabby and sarcastic pretty much sums me up right now," I looked around, "Look, Peter, me and Dan are gonna have to make a run for it and hope to get a few miles away from here. We're gonna have to hang up. Can we ring you back in fifteen minutes tops?"

"Fine," Peter huffed sulkily, "But don't think I'm happy at spending the rest of my night out here,"

"Sorry," I repeated, "Look, if we haven't rand back in fifteen minutes, head home. If we get caught, I suspect you'll hear about it at work tomorrow,"

"Doubtless I will," Peter agreed, "Speak to you in fifteen minutes then,"

I called off and shoved the phone in my pocket before looking around outside again and frowning. The gardens were separated by two-and-a-half metre high fences, which wouldn't be too difficult to climb over. If we moved a street over we'd have gained ourselves a few more minutes, if anyone was nearby, and from there we could follow the gardens along until we reached the end of the housing estate.

"I vote we jump the fence and make our escape through the back gardens until we hit civilisation and normal non-police-or-otherwise people," I proposed to Dan finally.

"Sounds ok to me," Dan shrugged. We heard a muffled thump from somewhere nearby. "Scratch that, it sounds brilliant, now let's go!" Dan hissed.

We chucked our bags over the fence then climbed up and over, landing as quietly as possible on the ground, on the other side. Dan handed me my bags and headed to the next fence.

I made a face, "Ok, screw this- it's going to be incredibly boring jumping over a fence, collecting our bags and heading onto the next. Why don't we try kicking down a few fences?" I suggested.

"Oh, yeah, brilliant idea. Can you think of a way to do that quietly?" Dan asked scathingly.

I plonked my bags by his feet and considered the fence in front of me, "I could try," I shrugged, getting ready to kick it.

"Jesus, Anna! I was kidding!" Dan yelped as quietly as he could.

I ignored him, decided kicking was for doors, not fences, and went for the shoulder barge. The fence collapsed practically soundlessly and with barely any effort, tossing me onto the ground.

Dan chucked my bags at me again as I climbed unsteadily to my feet, trying to contain his laughter at my indignant face.

"Come on! We've got people to run away from and Peter to call back," He told me, "Oh, and, dibs on attacking the next fence!"

"What?" I cried quietly, scrambling to my feet and pulling my bags over my shoulder, as Dan dashed off to the next fence, "That's so unfair! It was my idea! Dan!" I raced after him, "Oh come on! You had a head start!"

The fence fell over before I could reach him. Dan grinned cheekily at me before clambering over the poor fence's remains and running off. I glared at his back, adjusting my bags again and attempted to catch up with him.

"This is pay back for me not doing the shopping, isn't it?" I grumbled under my breath, "Damn that boy and his freaking infuriatingness!"

* * *

><p>Chapter 22~Anna<p>

We made it almost out of the estate before we got into major trouble. I'd managed to catch up with Dan and eventually, after a lot of dirty tricks and should-be-fouls used by both of us (bag stealing, tripping up, silent-two-minute-water-bottle-fight, hair pulling- me pulling Dan's hair, or what he has if it, admittedly, but still! We also tried the stealing-bags-_and_-throwing-them-in-random-garden-hedges trick) I over took Dan.

My victory was, naturally, short lived; I tripped over the fence I'd just destroyed and flew right into someone searching for us. Seriously, my great timing, genius balance and epical observation of my surroundings is going to get me killed someday.

I leaped to my feet, grabbing the torch out of the dude's surprised hand, switching it off and flinging it into some distant bush. I hoped it wouldn't count as littering or anything- my Karma was already unfairly balanced as it was.

Dan had joined me before I'd finished my little stealing-and-littering gig. Without hesitation he punched the poor sod in the face. There was a tense moment were we stood, expecting a counter attack of some sort. After a few seconds of silence, there was a brief, muffled thud/rustle.

"Dude! You knocked him clean out!" I gawped at Dan, who was shaking his fist out and cursing under his breath.

"It damn well hurt enough!" Dan complained, grabbing my arm, "Come on! We've gotta go before someone-"

"Hey! You two!" A torch attacked our faces.

"... notices us," Dan finished unenthusiastically.

"What's the point of not being noticed?" I asked, breaking out into a sprint towards the nearest exit of the garden- we'd made an official 'we're here!' announcement to anyone within fifty metres of us, hiding wouldn't do us any good now. "If you're not noticed, someone else is gonna take credit for your hard work!"

"Shut up and run properly!" Dan complained at me, keeping pace easily.

We upped our pace from run-for-your-lives-slash-freedom sprinting to holy-fuck-free-food sprinting. Behind us there was a kafuffle of yelling and general pandemonium.

"Am I allowed to cackle evilly now?" I asked, looking back and grinning.

"No! It's pointless and overly dramatic! We're running _away_! We don't want or need their attention!" Dan cried, exasperated.

I considered that for a second and shrugged (as much as one can when running like there is free food nearby), "Screw that," I told Dan, and cackled manically anyway.

"I'm pretty sure you will have officially freaked out anyone within earshot of us," Dan sighed, after a few minutes of silence and running.

"I should use it as a battle cry," I thought out loud, "You know? Like, that place in somewhere where some people do that thing... the Hakka or whatever. Or was that in football or some similar sport..."

"The Hakka? So you remember nothing about anything to do with the actual GCSE syllabus, but when it comes to the one lesson on football _or some similar sport_ you remember _the Hakka_!" Dan demanded incredulously.

"I have selective memory; I remember what's interesting, not what's boring," I replied simply.

"No," Dan corrected, "You remember whatever will benefit you in an argument over it later,"

"Yes, I suppose I'm kinda epic in that way," I agreed happily.

"_You_, Anna Simons, are unbelievable!" Dan exclaimed finally, as we reached somewhere familiar.

We stopped under a lamppost to catch our breath and see if anyone had followed. Apparently not. Well, that was something at least.

"How's your hand?" I asked after a minute.

"Huh?" Dan looked up, "Oh, it's fine now. I'll probably have a bruise in the morning, though,"

"Quit complaining. The dude you knocked out will have a dented ego, massive headache _and _a massive bruise _on his head_," I tutted, trying not to laugh.

Dan grinned slightly, "Suppose. Still- I kinda feel guilty about it. The guy was just doing his job. He didn't ask to be attacked by two delinquents with serious maturity issues,"

"Oh delinquents? How terribly posh and long-worded of you!" I rolled my eyes, "Whatever next? ... I can't think of an extraordinarily, stupidly long and pointless word to use," I trailed off.

"Pneumonoult ramicroscopicsilicov olcanoconiosis?" Dan suggested.

I stared at him "What the heck was that?" I asked eventually.

"A really, really long word," Dan shrugged.

"And it means...?" I prompted.

"No clue. We had the laptops out in Physics and I was bored," Dan replied.

We stood in silence for a few seconds, "You have problems," I told Dan eventually.

Dan sighed and we started walking again, "Tell me about it. Then again, I'm not half as mentally screwed up as you!"

"Hey!" I exclaimed, punching him lightly in the arm, "I take offense to that!"

Dan laughed, shaking his head to himself, "Come on- let's get off the streets and call Peter back," He sighed.


	7. We're Going On A Karlie Hunt

yeah... I haven't posted in a reaaaaaaaallllly long time, so I'm just gonna leave this here and go hang my head in shame in some far away corner...

and Merry Christmas to everyone (or just a happy December 25th)

Chapter 23~Anna

"Yo, Peter, we didn't die or get captured," I stated cheerfully into the phone as Dan and I made our way through various backstreets and side roads.

"Well there's a miracle in itself," Peter muttered sarcastically, "I'd nearly given up on you,"

"Well, that's comforting to know," Dan sighed, rolling his eyes, "But we still haven't got anywhere to go for the next few days at least,"

"Am I on speaker?" Peter asked me suspiciously.

"No, of course not, Peter, we're sitting down in the middle of the street with the phone between us leaning in as far as possible so we can both hear and speak to you," I said sarcastically.

"I honestly don't know how you've managed to stay consistently in one school," Peter replied, "How did you not get kicked out for talking back to the teachers and for all your cheek in general?"

"It's called burning detention slips and hacking school records," I said happily.

"Do you have any limits? You actually hacked your own school records?!" Peter asked, exasperated.

I pouted for a moment, "Emma wouldn't let me change my reports, or the grades on them,"

"Well thank God one of you two knows when to stop," Peter harrumphed.

"Back to the matter at hand," Dan intervened pointedly, before I could launch an awesome, crushing retort that would stun everyone to silence, "We have nowhere to go. Any ideas at all?"

"Yeah, because camping _isn't _an option, by the way," I added.

"Why?" Dan frowned, "We have the tent somewhere, and our sleeping bags,"

"The tent spontaneously combusted while we were making our escape," I told Dan.

"What?! Don't tell me you left it behind!" Dan cried.

"God no! I'm not a complete idiot! However, I may have thrown the tent poles into a random bush whilst trying to overtake you earlier," I said vaguely.

Dan groaned to himself, "Ok, camping isn't an option, and we haven't got enough money for even a bed and breakfast. Or more of, we have enough money, but we also need to buy food and so on. I doubt we're gonna find a conveniently empty or abandoned house anywhere around here, either,"

"Know anyone around here willing to let two random strangers stay for a couple of days?" I asked sarcastically, "A couple of overlooked relatives maybe?"

"Nope. No one. Not even a possible friend. I used to live in the Lake District area," Dan shrugged.

"Wow. Really? Like, the no internet, middle of nowhere, ooooh-look-there's-a-mountain-over-there-let's-climb-it Lake District?" I asked, surprised. I'd never really thought to ask about where Dan had lived before CHERUB- most people tended to avoid the subject, since basically everyone who joins is an orphan, and, well, a trip down memory lane isn't exactly fun.

"No, the place where, despite it being in the middle of nowhere, we get surprisingly good phone signal and decent wifi signally stuff, as well as being within walking distance from an ice cream van or a WHSmiths that sells big chocolate bars for a pound, and big bags of Haribo's, too," Dan told me.

"Starmix?" I asked questioningly.

"Yup," Dan nodded.

"I'm moving there after CHERUB," I told him solemnly.

"You two have to have the WORST attention span I have ever... I suppose I'll have to say heard. You can't keep on track of a conversation for more than a minute!" Peter growled.

"You're one to talk!" I retorted.

"Shut up!" Peter told me, "And concentrate,"

"Ok, so no camping, no bed and breakfast, probably no squatting, definitely no hotel. Anna, any friends you think you could trust?" Dan asked.

I thought for a second, "Noooppee," I shrugged, "People in my class only knew my name because I got told off in class so often,"

"Ok, that's out too. Other options?" Dan frowned.

"Distant relatives?" I suggested.

"None," Dan shook his head.

"I've got Arron, and then there's Dad's place. But Arron has a flatmate that I don't think we can really trust, and Dad's place has probably been rented out to someone else, or something by now," I sighed, frowning, "The only other person I can think of is you and Aunt Carron," I sighed.

Peter sighed thoughtfully, "If you could get there before it got light, and if you went after dark, no one would notice. I'm pretty sure they're only keeping a vague eye on me now- I haven't given them any real reason to be suspicious, and it takes time, effort and money to have someone under surveillance for more than a few days,"

"Oh, yes, because if they find us at your house, that totally won't make them suspicious of you at all! You could lose your job, if they find us, Peter!" I snapped, immediately dismissing the idea.

"Oh yes, because I'm not at all qualified to get another job, am I?" Peter retorted witheringly.

"You're helping two teenagers, one of whom is your best friend's daughter. Both your best friend and these two teenagers are fugitives. No, I'm _sure _you'll come out of this one on top," I continued.

"Well _I'm _sure Carron will slaughter me if I leave the two of you to freeze out on the streets. And besides, be realistic, Anna. You have nowhere to go and no real chance of staying somewhere for the next week or so," Peter reasoned.

"He has a point, Anna," Dan pointed out, looking slightly awkward. I guess he agreed with Peter's point about no shelter, but felt horrible because he wasn't exactly putting up any argument about how this could backfire on Peter.

"Fine," I snapped grouchily, "But the first sign of trouble and we're sleeping in a tree in a random park and never coming within a fifteen mile radius of Peter's house again,"

"I'd better call Carron then, before you change your mind. Get there before it's light, mind," Peter told us, "I'll see you... later today, hopefully,"

He called off, and I groaned, "This is gonna end so badly,"

Dan sighed, "Look on the bright side- free food, beds and decent hot meals, three times a day,"

"Dude, I don't even care about that. I am going purely for the steaming hot bath that I will be having for at least an hour when we get there," I replied, shouldering my bags again, "Come on, it's this way to their house,"

Dan started to follow, but frowned suspiciously when I started laughing, "What? What is it?"

I rubbed my tired eyes and grinned, "I can't wait for you to meet Peter's kid- Danny,"

* * *

><p>Chapter 24~Emma<p>

I woke up early to see Andrew and Liam off. Thankfully, the two of them had managed to convince Meryl to let Andrew join last minute, even if she had been slightly suspicious about it.

"Heya," I waved at him as I spotted him eating breakfast with Liam, looking more than slightly unenthusiastic.

Andrew looked up and beamed at me, "Hi Emma. What're you doing up so early? School doesn't start for another hour and a half,"

I shrugged, "I came down to see you off, and wish you good luck,"

Andrew smiled ruefully, "Good luck on finding Karlie, or on trying to put up with Liam for a whole day,"

I considered a second, "Both, I think,"

"Well, I think I'll need it- Liam's decided to tell me the whole plot of The Italian Job, for the whole journey down," Andrew made a face, "I accidentally told him I'd never seen it,"

"It's not such a bad film," I shrugged, "Didn't like the ending that much, though. If you decide you really hate it, though, try earplugs. I use them when Anna starts fangirling over out neighbour's added internet security or whatever," I shook my head slightly, trying not to grin too much.

Liam looked up at the two of us, "I find this all completely offensive. A) I'm not actually _that _bad and B) The Italian Job is an _awesome _movie,"

"Well, A) you're pretty much as bad as Zack, and that, by the way, is _bad_ and B) The Italian Job has a completely pointless ending that no one in the history of the whole entire world likes or feels satisfied with," I replied.

Liam waved a hand dismissively, "Well the guy who wrote the damn movie must've, otherwise it wouldn't have ended like that, and then the director who filmed it or whatever, and then the producer and then... Well, you get the idea,"

"Actually, the producer of the movie didn't like any of the four endings that they wrote, at least according to Wikipedia," I shrugged, "So I guess they just left it to collect dust in the corner before deciding to give up and leave it,"

"Well... that's not even my point!" Liam cried.

"Oh, that was so your point," I muttered scathingly.

"Hey, guys, I think we're getting a bit off topic here!" Liam objected loudly.

"Looks like even the people who _made _the film didn't like it, Liam," Andrew pointed out, grinning slightly.

"Hey! That is _not_ true!"

"Hang on. I thought you said we were getting off topic?" I asked teasingly.

"Yes, yes, alright!" Liam snapped, slamming his hands down on the table in frustration, "My point was that I am not actually that annoying. But The Italian Job still remains absolutely amazing even if everyone seems to think that the ending is disappointing!"

"Aaaand there goes Liam's orange juice," Andrew sighed, as we watched the cup fall over from the abuse it had gained over Liam's overenthusiastic gestures. That is to say, he'd knocked over his orange juice.

"Great." Liam huffed, "See what you made me do!" He grabbed the now empty cup and plonked it upright again, "One of you go get some paper towels or something will you? Guys?"

Neither of us looked up from the trail of orange juice, now converging onto the other side of Liam's plate, and the small pool that was slowly making its way towards the end of the table.

"Oh I give up!" Liam groaned, storming off to get something to mop up the mess.

I looked after him, "Do you think we should go?" I asked Andrew, "Y'know, before he comes back and starts nagging us?"

"Probably. But I can't exactly avoid spending the rest of the day with him, can I?" Andrew pointed out, "I suppose he's not _that_ bad. I'd just rather hang out with you guys and Tom. Liam is _Dan's _best friend, not _mine_!" He complained.

"I know, life sucks," I sighed, "But on the bright side, they are _finally _doing a practical in Chemistry tomorrow!" I grinned, "Finally! I am sick of doing stupid worksheets and rubbish, ten minute long videos explaining the different parts of fractional distillation or whatever! I get to actually _do_ something tomorrow!"

Andrew shook his head, "Ah, the old enthusiasm for blowing stuff up returns!"

"I do _not _enjoy blowing stuff up! I just..." I spotted Liam looking stroppy and stomping back towards our table, "Ok, forget it, let's just go before Liam gets back," I told Andrew, grabbing my plate and running.

Andrew wasn't very far behind me.

"Hey!" Liam cried, spotting us as we escaped the hall.

* * *

><p>Chapter 25~Andrew<p>

After our disappearing act in the hall, Liam wasn't exactly in the best of moods, when he finally caught up with me.

"I can't believe you just left me to sit and eat breakfast in the hall by myself like a complete loner!" He complained as he caught up with me waiting with the other kids going on the mission.

"For the record, that was completely Emma's idea. I can claim no credit for it," I told Liam, "You can't blame me for anything,"

"You still ran away," Liam pointed out, sounding slightly sulky about it.

"Liam, no offence, but why do you even care?" I burst out, frustrated, "I mean, you're ok, but we're not exactly _friends_. Why does it matter suddenly that I deserted you in the hall?!"

I regretted saying it almost immediately. I swear I wasn't usually this upfront about things. And could I have said it in a more horrible way?! Jesus! I needed help.

Liam looked up and shrugged, "Well, since, y'know, Emma and Anna arrived, we've all kinda been hanging out together," He looked about as awkward as I felt, which was very, in case you didn't know, "And since Dan, Anna and Karlie ran off, it's kinda just reverted back to your kinda group and mine. We've kinda just dropped each other when we were halfway to being friends, because the original reasons for us _to _be friends have buggered off elsewhere,"

I frowned for a second, thinking it over. To be honest, Liam did have a point- we were only friends because Emma and I were friends, but her twin sister Anna was friends with Dan. Since Anna and Dan weren't coming back anytime soon (so we suspected- we weren't entirely sure _when _they were coming back) we'd kinda just ditched Liam and left him to find some other people to be friends with. Wow. I felt like such a nice person right now.

I grimaced at Liam, "You're right. Sorry for being a jerk to you. When we get back I'll talk to the others," While I wasn't blameless for Liam's treatment, I wasn't exactly the only person acting that way towards him.

Liam flashed me a grateful grin, and I smiled back.

"Could we, by any chance, start over this whole entire day?" I asked.

"Sure," Liam shrugged, "But I'm still expecting an apology present for deserting me in the hall earlier,"

I laughed, "Unless you want the clay pot I attempted to make yesterday you're gonna have to keep waiting- I'm completely broke right now,"

Liam looked distraught, "What about pocket money?" He asked.

"Spent it all on books," I shrugged, "Sorry,"

"How?!" Liam demanded, "When?!"

"Oh, um, more of I made the mistake of borrowing from Elizabeth last time the lot of us went shopping. Never do that- she demands extra for each day you wait to pay her back," I made a face.

"Wow... Note to self," Liam looked slightly stunned.

"Alright is everybody here?!" The mission controller at the front of our group asked loudly. Evidentially not trusting the answers she got, she went round counting them, "Yes, ok, let's move out people! We've got a train to catch,"

Thankfully Liam did not recount the entire plot line of The Italian Job to me on the way down, but I could tell he came close to doing it several times throughout the journey. After half an hour, the others with us on the mission who were sitting within earshot were either listening to music or have a very animated conversation about some TV show called Legend Of Korra. I decided now would be as good a time as any to breach the subject of finding Karlie.

"So... Do we have any vague sort of plan for finding Karlie?" I asked Liam quietly.

"Um... I was kinda hoping you had one," Liam mumbled back.

"Great," I grumbled.

"Well, this whole finding-Karlie thing was kinda your idea in the first place!" Liam objected.

I was pretty sure it actually hadn't, but let it slide, "Ok, um... Well, obviously she probably isn't going to be in the middle of some stupid housing estate in London. She would probably stand out too much there," I reasoned.

"Well, that narrows everything down so much," Liam muttered sarcastically.

"We should've gone with the posters idea," I replied jokingly.

"I know, right? Less effort," Liam looked around, checking no one was listening, then turned back to me, "Look, I don't really think we can achieve all that much today with only two of us, but making some sort of plan we probably won't even stick to is more or less gonna be a waste of time. We'll come up with something when we get there," He shrugged.

I had no idea how Liam could be confident of having any plans by the time we arrived since I couldn't think of anything even remotely helpful. We all got off the train and were told to meet outside the station at half seven this evening. I checked my watch- 10:30. That gave us nine and a half hours in London. Liam and I split off from the rest and started off.

"Ok, how about this?" Liam suggested, "Karlie's not gonna be in any place too quiet, in case she gets noticed. However, she's also not gonna be too keen on any place with CCTV or an cameras at all, to be honest, in case one of them picks her up. So she wants to be in a busy place, but one without cameras?"

"Yeah, ok. I think I'll stick with walking-along-random-streets-and-hoping-a-miracle-occurs," I told him.

"Fair enough," Liam nodded, and we set off again.

* * *

><p>Chapter 26<p>

Karlie was, once again, trying not to strangle O'Pars. The damn girl was pushing her luck _way _too far. For a seventeen year old with £3.60 to her name and a single backpack of possessions, she had a pretty inflated sense of her own importance. Currently, she was using this inflated self-importance to tell Karlie off for something that she had done. Or maybe it was something she _hadn't _done... Karlie had stopped listening the very second she'd seen The Look on the idiot's face.

The Look was basically this haughty, self obsessed, semi annoyed kind of expression O'Pars gained whenever she was about to start yelling. Recently, Karlie had been the one to bear the brunt of the yelling. And so help her, if Karlie didn't shut the hell up sometime soon, Karlie wasn't going to carry on standing there taking it.

"ARE YOU EVEN PAYING ATTENTION?!" O'Pars was screaming at her.

"Nope. Calm your narcissistic, over-reactive, extremely annoying self down and bugger off, O'Pars. I didn't hear it the first time, and I'm not planning on hanging around to hear it a second time," Karlie announced, "I'm off to do something productive,"

Can stifled a snigger and hopped up after Karlie, the two of them escaping before O'Pars could start up again.

"Well that weren't at all interestin'. I'm pretty sure the others were bettin' on how long you were gonna wait until you punched her," Can grinned as the two of them pushed their way along the crowded street.

"I was just about ready to, if I'm honest. Parsy was being an annoying prick, and I have other things to do," Karlie replied.

"You taggin' somewhere else today then?" Can asked curiously. Can was the only person that Karlie had told about Dasakota. 'Tagging' was just the word they used. It was quicker than 'burning-down-some-idiots-house-for-various-reasons-that-you-probably-won't-have-any-idea-about'.

"I'm thinking about it. Not sure though. O'Pars will have my head if I disappear the _whole _day, which is how long it'll take," Karlie shrugged.

"Which is totally not the reason why we're headin' to the nearest train station, is it?" Can grinned knowingly.

"Hey, I'm walking," Karlie pointed out defensively, "You're the one who has seemingly planned out every stage of the journey,"

Can shook her head, "I got no clue where you're even plannin' to go, much less how ya gonna get there,"

"Right, because you honestly weren't even remotely curious, and didn't at all try looking for stuff on my laptop last night, did you?" Karlie narrowed her eyes pointedly at the younger girl.

She winced, "Sorry! I was just _really _curious! You never tell me anythin', and I've helped you out a lot recently! I reckon you owe me somethin'!"

"Hey! Chill," Karlie held her hands up in defence, "You're right, I owe you. And I'm fine with you using my laptop, long as you don't fiddle with the settings or nothing,"

"Awesome," Can decided.

"And you get the hell off it if I want to use it," Karlie added.

"Not so awesome," Can groaned, "Ya use that laptop all the damn time! It's like you have some weird addiction that thin'!"

"I am not on it all the time!" Karlie objected, "I'm not on it now!"

Can raised an eyebrow, considering, then; "No, but if you were sittin' down and not movin' you probablys would be,"

"That is completely beside the point, and you know it!" Karlie blustered.

They were just a couple of streets away from 'Pick Pocket Central' as Can jokingly called it, so Karlie steered the two of them in that direction, away from the train station. Pick Pocket Central was a few streets that were always nearly impossibly crowded, and there were next to no police hanging around. However, there were plenty of pompous rich guys still hanging about, with pockets full of insane amounts of money no person with even half a brain cell would normally carry around with them.

"You just can't face the truth!" Can laughed.

"Hey- you just can't face the fact that I am infinitely more awesome th-" Karlie stopped midsentence, her jaw dropping about five feet.

"More awesome than who? Or what?" Can teased, oblivious.

When Karlie didn't reply, Can turned to look at her, "What? What is it?"

"Uh... Two guys I know," Karlie mumbled, "From that care home place I went to,"

She tried to think of any reason why Andrew and Liam would be in London. She could only think of two; 1) They were on a mission, or 2) They were trying to find her. If they were on a mission, the worst thing she could do was distract them, or talk to them, in case it blew their cover. If they were trying to find her, though, then hiding wouldn't be the best thing to do, either.

"You gonna run or stand there like a gormless idiot?" Can asked, "What if they recognise ya, and call someone?"

Karlie shifted her weight, thinking things over. If Andrew and Liam were here looking for her, she could only presume that it was because they needed something from her, otherwise they wouldn't risk seeing her. If they met up with Karlie, then it was probably safe, if a bit pessimistic, to presume that Mac, or Meryl, or some other big cheese in CHERUB would figure out where she was, too. On the other hand, she couldn't have been overly easy to track, meaning that they'd put a lot of effort into it. They probably needed something off her badly. So, risk discovery and go help the inept, doubtlessly brainless idiots, or stay safe and leave them to struggle?

Grumbling about their incompetence and something along the lines of 'serious dependency issues', 'restraining orders' and 'lack of brain cells', Karlie set off after the two, trying not to lose them.

"Wait. Two guys who could recognise ya and get ya caught, and ya's just gonna chase after 'em? You insane, woman?" Can asked, following Karlie without hesitation.

"It's... Kinda a long story," Karlie shrugged, "Like, a _long_, ling story, which you ain't gonna hear, so quit asking before ya start!"

The two of them had managed to cut in front of Liam and Andrew, so Karlie got the honours of scaring them out of their idiotic, grossly exaggerated wits.

"Hoy! Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee! Nice to see you again!" Karlie called waving to catch their attention as they neared. She got several weird looks, but fuck them; Liam and Andrew had noticed her at least.

"Ya realise tellin' me not to ask is like tellin' me not to steal somethin', right?" Can asked, watching Andrew and Liam approach.

"You mean you've actually listened before, when some dumbshit told ya not to steal?" Karlie muttered.

Can glared, "No, ijit. Course I didn't,"

Karlie didn't have time to reply, as Liam and Andrew finally arrived, looking torn between surprise and relief. She crossed her arms and raised a scornful eyebrow; "You two morons looking for someone, or are ya here for a tour of the city? If it's the latter, you're in the wrong place. I don't do no tours,"

"We can't do both?" Liam asked acting crestfallen.


	8. Dan Meets Anna's Inner Fangirl

HI! so, I'm back again, and I've got a new years resolution to update at least once a month

lets play a game called how long can I last before said resolution goes to shit

* * *

><p>Chapter 27~Dan<p>

Screaming and yelling. That was what woke me up. I hadn't had a full, uninterrupted sleep in about a week and a half. And I was woken up by people yelling and screaming. I sat up, looking around the room blearily.

Anna and I had gotten to Peter's house at half three in the morning, and Carron, Peter's wife, who'd been called and forewarned, had sorted out two beds for the two of us- well, a sofa (which Anna had insisted on taking, because it meant she could sit up and watch TV all night) and a bed. I climbed out of bed and went to find out what unearthly hour I'd been woken up at.

I opened my door and was immediately mobbed by two people- a tiny little kid, and, a couple of seconds after, Anna.

"I'm gonna get you!" Anna cried, chasing the kid into, then all around, then back out of my room. He squealed and laughed as he ran off. Anna skidded to a stop next to me.

"Ah! His royal highness is _finally _up! Come on! I'll properly introduce you to Danny!" She told me, dragging me after her.

"What time is it, even?" I asked.

"Oh, about half eight," Anna shrugged, "Last time I checked, anyway,"

"In the morning?!" I cried, "Anna, we got to sleep about five hours ago!"

"Oh, I've been up since quarter to seven," Anna replied, "I've eaten, I've had a long, relaxing shower and I'm dressed in nice, clean, dry clothes,"

"You're insane," I groaned as we finally caught up with the little boy- Danny I presumed.

"Danny, this is Dan. His full name's Daniel too," Anna grinned teasingly.

I rolled my eyes. As long as she didn't make another crack at my surname...

Trying not to look scary, grumpy, or like I'd just gotten up two minutes earlier, I smiled, "Hi Danny,"

"Hi Dan!" Danny grinned at me.

"Danny, we've got to go now! Otherwise you'll be late for school," A woman- Carron, I remembered- suddenly called up the stairs to us.

"C'mon," Anna held out her hand for Danny and flashed me a smile, "You don't want to be late! Otherwise you'll get into trouble!"

"Aww! But I wanna stay home!" Danny complained.

"Hey, we'll still be here tonight. We're not going anywhere anytime soon," Anna reassured him.

"We're not?" I asked her quietly, "What happened to staying-here-will-get-everyone-into-trouble,"

"I've changed my mind- a hot shower and TV can do that to a girl," Anna whispered back, as we climbed downstairs.

Carron smiled at us, "I've got work until six, and Peter doesn't usually arrive back until later, so I'm afraid you'll be home alone most of the day. I trust you have enough common sense not to use the phone, in case they're still listening in. It's probably best to keep it down- we don't want the whole neighbourhood to realise you're here," She hugged Anna, and grabbed her car keys out of a pot, "I've left some sandwiches in the fridge if you get hungry, and there are some crisps in the cupboard- Anna knows where. So just help yourselves," Carron fussed.

Anna found Danny's school bag and gave it to him, "Alright, Carron, we'll be fine," She laughed, "Stop fussing so much. As long as Dan doesn't cook anything, the house should still be standing by the time you get back,"

"Hey!" I yelped indignantly, "I take offense to that!"

"Ok, pyjama boy, whatever," Anna patted me patronisingly on the shoulder, "Bye Carron!" She waved, as Carron and Danny went out.

The two of us stood in the hallway listening to the car pull out of the driveway.

"MOVIE DAY!" Anna cried, leaping into action and running into what I presumed to be the living room.

"Uh, are we seriously gonna spend the whole day messing around watching movies?" I asked Anna incredulously, "Haven't we got... you know... stuff to do. Like trying to figure out a way to clear your dad's name and so on?"

Anna looked up for a second, holding my gaze, "Yes. We _do _have stuff to do," She paused for a second, then grinned again, "However, I'm calling a day off!" She held up two DVD cases, "Looney Tunes or Thomas the Tank Engine?"

I stared at her, and then groaned, "I'm going to have a shower and get dressed," I told her.

"Ok then," She called out after me, "Hey! What about Bob the Builder? DAAAAAAAAN! THEY HAVE PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN! OH MY GOD! AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER- the TV show ones, mind, not the movie... god that was terrible! OOOH! DOCTOR WHO EPISODES ON RECORD! MY LIFE HAS BEEN SAVED YET AGAIN! I FORGOT HOW AWESOME THESE PEOPLE WERE! HOW AM I NOT RELATED TO THEM?!"

That girl had serious issues. _Very _serious issues. I suppressed a grin and shouted back, "As long as they don't have the Italian Job. Liam was obsessed with that film! And _God_ the ending of it was _crap_! I have emotional scarrage over the amount of times I was forced to watch it,"

I heard Anna laugh, and she yelled back, "Tell me about it- Emma went through an obsession phase of She's the Man, and Arron used to force us into watching the first Spiderman every bloody weekend. The old one, mind, not the new one. What's the new one called again? The Amazing Spiderman? If you ask me, that is title-rippage of The Incredible Hulk. They completely copied the idea!"

"If you say so. I think the new one looks quite good though," I replied, heading up the stairs to try and figure out where the heck the bathroom was.

"HOLY CRAP! DAAAAN! THESE PEOPLE ARE AWESOME BEYOND COMPARE! I WILL NEVER COMPLAIN TO THEM AGAIN! NEVER! AND REMIND ME TO THANK DAD FOR MAKING FRIENDS WITH ONE OF THE MOST AMAZING PEOPLE EVER WHEN I SEE HIM AGAIN!" Anna yelped, running out and to the bottom of the stairs, throwing a DVD case at me, "They have _Robots_, Dan, _Robots_,"

"Good lord. Please don't make me watch that film!" I moaned.

"I love Robots!" Anna practically sang, "It's like, my all time favourite movie!"

"Fine, if we're watching Robots for you, we have to watch Die Hard 4.0 for me," I compromised, continuing upstairs.

"Ok! I like that film, anyway," Anna shrugged. Then grinned, "Do you know what other film they have?"

I shook my head, bracing myself for the worse- something like Bambi, or something equally horrific sounding. Not that I had anything against Bambi. It's just hard to look tough or 'manly' when you start crying over the death of Bambi's mum. And yes, I did that. It's a very sad moment. I cry at sad moments. Don't even get me started on Marley and Me. _That _was a depressing film.

"_Thunderbirds_," Anna cheered, "Remind me to ask Carron if I can move in with them for the rest of my life,"

I sighed in relief. No horribly depressing, upsetting or otherwise tear-jerking movie moments in _that _film. I didn't think...

* * *

><p>Chapter 28~Andrew<p>

We were sat in a rundown cafe a few streets from where we'd met Karlie. We meaning Liam, Karlie, her friend- Can, was it?!- and I. Can was nursing a mug of hot chocolate, and Liam had landed himself with the most caffeinated drink that was possible to buy. Karlie and I were going without.

"I take it this is about Anna and Dan, then?" Karlie grumbled, "How did you guys even find me?"

I felt a tiny bit smug as I replied, "You gave us a few small hints." oh, yeah, a couple of burnt down buildings here and there, no big deal, "A lot of it was extreme guess work. Meeting you a few minutes ago was all your fault, though. And, of course, extreme amounts of luck. But in answer to your first question. This is all Anna and Dan's fault. Blame them not us," Better to lay the blame on someone who wasn't going to be around in the immediate future than to claim responsibility for something that you only helped a little bit with. It wasn't my usual logic, but, hey, Karlie was scary when she got angry!

"So what's this all about? How is you talking to me going to help Anna and Dan?" Karlie demanded.

"Anna's sorted out a way for us all to talk via email. Everyone is keeping in touch with everyone else. You're the only one missing," I said.

"I feel so left out," Karlie replied.

"Yeah, so, anyway, I was supposed to give you the email address you can talk to us on," I passed over a piece of paper with the email address on, "We figured that it might be easier for you to use a separate account, in case we ever needed to have a big group meeting. Your laptop has a webcam, right?"

Karlie gave me A Look, "What cave do you think I crawled out from and back into? Of course I've got a stupid webcam. It's built in,"

Well, no wonder Karlie and Anna got on so well. Both had an almost creepy over attachment to their laptops. I decided it would be good in future to never mention technology to either of them. Ever.

"Right, well," I coughed, trying not to look/act too sheepish, "Anna and Dan need some stuff off you, or something. They didn't really say. I guess you can email them and find out yourself,"

I checked my watch and slumped back in my seat, "Well, looks like Liam and I have got plenty of time to waste before we head off on our..." I glanced over at Can, sitting watching us suspiciously, "um... Easter Egg trail?"

Karlie smirked, raising a mocking eyebrow, "God, you're pathetic sometimes, Andrew. Easter egg trial? Really? Chill, Can, they're skiving off school for the day,"

Liam looked up from his horrifically caffeinated drink and grinned, "Yeah, there's this new film that just got released today on DVD, and there is nowhere within fifty miles of our care home that's selling it or has any in stock. So I voted a trip to London, and I dragged Andrew along. That's pretty much when we ran into you! Anyway, with any luck, we'll catch the train back at around three and arrive back at the same time as everyone else coming back from school does. They'll never even notice we're missing. Hopefully," I mentally whacked my head off a brick wall. _God_, even Liam was more convincing than I was!

I shrugged sheepishly, "It was the first thing that came into my head!"

"Well then, ya have a _really_ weird mind then, don't ya?" Can told me.

Wow... now I was getting told off by an eight year old... this day was just awesome. I supposed that, on the bright side, she wasn't _half _as terrifying and insane as Gabby and Flo. She also didn't seem to be lugging around a pet hamster named Sybil. That was _always_ a plus. I don't know how they managed to do it, but Gabby and Flo had managed to get their hands on the most evil hamster in the whole of existence. I was personally considering performing an exorcism on the damn thing. I _swear_ normal hamsters weren't so... nefarious. I was _never_ going anywhere near that damn hamster, not after the last time...

Karlie cleared her throat loudly, "Dude, anyone in there? Hello? Mr Staring Off Into The Distance Looking Dark and Brooding? Earth is back this way,"

I blinked, looking back at her, "Oh, sorry. I got sidetracked," by traumatic memories of a _hamster_. Now I _really_ felt pathetic. "Anyway, is that tour of London still a no?" I asked.

Karlie gave me a withering look.

"And I was just getting my hopes up," Liam muttered mockingly, pretending to be devastated again. I managed to keep a straight face.

"Ok then. I guess we'll hang out here until Liam finishes his... drink of dubious contents, and then we'll go get that DVD we've been looking for," I proposed. I didn't particularly want to say goodbye to Karlie so soon after we'd found her, but there was very little we could talk about with Can nearby.

We sat quietly for a few minutes, trying to think of a conversation that didn't involve CHERUB. Karlie tapped her fingers lightly against the table.

"Ok, that's it. Seriously, how the heck did you find me? It's gonna bug me forever," Karlie demanded finally, leaning closer and lowering her voice so Can couldn't hear- much to her indignation.

"Uh... recent newspaper articles involving non-accidental house fires. A lot of them seemed to be reasonably near to London, and several had witnesses claiming to see a strange young girl hanging around earlier in the day. That was pretty much how we narrowed it down to London," I said cautiously, worried that Can could still overhear us.

Karlie nodded, like she had guessed this long ago.

"Why fires?" I blurted out, after another second or two. It had been bugging me for _ages_, why Karlie chose to burn down people's houses. It didn't make sense. They could just buy another house, or something, and get insurance money. Sure, it would upset them, losing most of their stuff, but it wasn't exactly a massive, catastrophic, no-one-will-ever-move-on-from-this-point-in-time disaster.

Karlie smiled smugly, like she'd been waiting for me to ask that question, "The Burneson Hodges Case," She said, "Look it up sometime, if you really want to know. Oh, and it was kinda how I started. The first house I snuck into, that was owned by a member of Dasakota, anyway, well, they caught me in the act. I escaped by setting fire to their house and stealing my beautiful laptop. The whole... setting fire thing seemed almost symbolic. It's stuck a long time,"

"Great, so I have to go look up something _else_?!" I complained, "I have other things to do with my life, you know!"

"You mean homework," Karlie said scathingly.

"Yes! Yes, of _course_ I mean homework! Unlike some people, I _care_ what grades I get! I _want_ to get qualifications and be accepted into some top-notch university, and get a degree in something meaningful and then get an awesome job where I do next to nothing and get paid thousands of pounds per hour!" I groaned.

Karlie laughed, "I'm gonna be serving food in McDonald's until I'm eighty, but who cares? I'm having fun now. Besides, Anna's agreed to join me when I start working night-shifts at Tesco's,"

My jaw dropped, "You are insane. And so is Anna," They had been given possibly the best education in the country, and they were going to work night shifts at _Tesco_, of all places?! They could have at least chosen somewhere more rewarding- like working at Cadbury's chocolate factory! I mean, if you're gonna aim low, aim high! But Christ, it made me cringe just thinking about it. All that work put into getting good grades and they were going to throw it... hang on... what was I thinking? This was Anna and Karlie. I was willing to bet they hadn't put _any_ effort in _at all_ into getting good grades... After a few seconds, I realised my mouth was still wide open. I snapped it shut, and shook my head at Karlie incredulously. Just... wow...

Liam placed his cup down on the table, "Well, it was lovely meeting you again, Karlie, and meeting you for the first time, Can. But, since I'm finished, and Andrew may be about to have a heart attack after your last statement Karlie, I think we'll be going now,"

He mock saluted the two of them and dragged me out of the small cafe.

"They're insane, Liam. Completely insane. Her and Anna are..." I mumbled.

Liam smirked, "Just so you know, Dan and I are getting jobs at Burger King, and working night shifts at Asda. We're going to have a competition with the girls to see which supermarket and restaurant gets paid the most and treats their employees the best,"

I felt like crying. Why was the world full of idiots who wanted to waste their lives asking people if they wanted their food 'to go' or making casual conversation about the weather? Why did no one seem to fully appreciate the education they were getting?

Liam chuckled to himself at my tortured expression, "I feel sorry for you, Andrew. You serious people must lead such boring lives,"

"Boring they may be," I retorted, "But in ten years time when I'm surrounded by piles of money and you're scraping chewing gum off the underside of tables, you will wish you'd paid attention in school,"

"Sounds foreboding," Liam said cheerfully, "I look forward to becoming a master thief and stealing all your money,"

"Until you get caught by the police, and arrested," I argue.

"I won't though, because I will be practised in the ways of Hoodee dude, and will become a great escape artist. They'll never catch me!"

I winced, "Liam? It's Houdini,"

* * *

><p>Chapter 29~Emma<p>

Andrew and Liam didn't arrive back until late, both looking dirty, beaten up and disgruntled. Andrew looked particularly sulky. Raine, Tom, Elizabeth and I had been camping out on the stairs, waiting for them.

"You guys took your time getting back!" Elizabeth scoffed, double-checking her watch, "Do you have any _idea_ how long we've been sitting on these stairs being stealthy and ninja-like trying to avoid people. And Meryl. Mostly trying to avoid Meryl. I swear that woman never actually sleeps. I also swear she has better things to do than prowl the corridors looking menacing. Maybe she's some sort of robot clone..." Elizabeth trailed off thoughtfully, "_That_ would explain a _lot_,"

I frowned for a second considering it. Elizabeth did have a point with that theory. However, I sincerely doubted Meryl was a robot. At least, I sincerely hoped she wasn't because I honestly don't think I could've been able to cope with an evil psycho killer robot running one of the most top secret organisations ever. Maybe Meryl just had a stash of caffeine somewhere in her office. That seemed more likely. And less terrifying.

"Or maybe she's secretly evil and is plotting the end of the world as we know it," Andrew replied sarcastically collapsing on the stair next to me, "As long as she isn't bothering us, I don't really care what Meryl is doing. I'm too tired right now. To tired and sore and _annoyed_ at someone in particular," Andrew glared at Liam.

"What? How is it _my_ fault that _you_ got arrested?" Liam demanded defensively.

"I got arrested _three_ times, Liam! _Three_! Do you have any idea-" Andrew threw his hands up in frustration, "You know what? Never mind. I'm gonna go take a shower and sleep. Maybe I'll feel less like punching you in the morning," He said through gritted teeth.

"Three?" Tom asked, eyebrow raised, "That's actually quite impressive,"

"I know, right!" Liam cried, "See!" He pointed from Andrew to Tom.

Andrew looked like he wanted to thump his head against a chunk of cement repeatedly. I decided it would be a good idea to change the subject before Liam ended up seriously injured.

"So... did you guys find Karlie?" I asked hopefully.

Andrew smiled slightly, "She found us, really. We were just kinda wandering around with no clue what to do and she appeared out of nowhere,"

Liam snorted, "Dude, your making us sound so unmanly! At least make it sound more dramatic than that!"

"Liam, if you do not shut up right now, so help me I will tell everyone just how unmanly you were earlier today when you discovered that there was a whole floor dedicated to creepy reptiles and snakes in particular in that mansion," Andrew snapped.

Liam paled and his mouth snapped shut. For about two seconds, "Just for clarification, I would like to point out that the so called 'pets' were _not_ mentioned on our mission briefings. Not a single word. I actually double-checked that afterwards," He paused, considering, "Besides, if you _really_ want to start this argument, I feel obliged to mention The Sybil Incident," Liam finished with a smirk.

The whole group froze for a second, with a mixture of expressions fixed on our faces. There was the oh-he-did-_not_-just-mention-that and the that-was-low-man, from Tom and the don't-laugh-whatever-you-do-don't-laugh-don't-even-smile-keep-a-straight-face-at-all-costs-don't-even-think-about-what-happened-try-looking-outraged-or-sympathetic-just-don't-laugh-or-someone-will-probably-kill-you look from Elizabeth. Raine's expression seemed to suggest a mixture of sympathy, panic and outrage. I was aiming for a blank expression, but I'm pretty sure I looked either seriously unhinged or just plain weird (neither of them were very flattering looks, if I'm honest). Andrew's expression, however bounced backwards and forwards between how-could-he-even-think-its-ok-to-mention-that and a sort of panicked, deer-in-the-headlights look. He also seemed to have turned several shades paler than normal.

"I think that was probably a bit too far, Liam," Raine half-whispered.

"Yeah, Andrew has actual trauma from The Hamster That Shall Not Be Named," Elizabeth joined in.

I coughed uncomfortably, having been taken aside by Elizabeth a while ago and filled in about the whole fiasco along with Raine and some of the others (it had happened while we'd been in Basic Training), "Well, not that I haven't been having a great time sitting on these stairs for half the day and most of the night, but I'm pretty tired. How about we all head back to our own rooms?"

There was a sort of universal agreement, and everyone seemed to awkwardly back away to their respected floors, trying not to seem to desperate to get away from a possibly catatonic Andrew. I rolled my eyes at them and helped Andrew up to his feet.

"Hey, Gabby bought another new lock for the cage several days ago. There's no chance that He's getting out any time soon. Relax," I said, as we headed up the stairs.

"I don't know whether to be relieved that she has, or concerned that she _needed_ to buy a new lock," Andrew replied.

"I know... I have no idea what in the world possessed Gabby and Flo to choose that hamster in particular, but _jeez_ you've got to admire the sheer skill and dumb luck it must've taken them to pick out the most evil, most horrifying one,"

"Well, I've come to just accept that Gabby and Flo have an immediate friendship with all things evil. I swear Gabby used to be a sweet little kid, once upon a time," Andrew sighed.

I laughed a little, "Whatever you do, don't let her hear that. There are two people in the whole world right now that Gabby will always be a 'sweet little kid' for, and that's Anna and Arron,"

Andrew gave me a funny look, "But not you?" He asked.

I frowned, "Sometimes, like when she's upset or worried. But not usually, no. I think it's mostly just because Anna and Arron have very little maturity and dignity in them. Oh, sure, Arron acts all mature and responsible, but underneath all that he is _such _a three year old," I shook my head, "I swear I am the only person in my family that acts my age,"

Andrew wrapped an arm around my shoulder, grinning, "You say that like it's a bad thing. I don't know how Dan puts up with Anna, if I'm honest. She's like a toddler stuck in a teenager's body,"

"Dan puts up with her because secretly, he's also a toddler stuck in a teenager's body," I told him, "God, I worry about those two sometimes. I'm surprised they've lasted this long,"


	9. Anna Is A Mildly Intelligent Teenager

Are you guys proud of me for keeping my New Year's Resolution and updating again?

Ok, so yes, I'm kinda pushing it considering it's nearly 11pm, but who cares about finer points like that anyway?

* * *

><p>Chapter 30<p>

_From: EmailsToMyself Gmail .com_

_To: EmailsToMyself Gmail .com_

_(Sent on Wednesday 7__th__ April, 5:48pm)_

_Emma_

_Okay, so, Anna and Dan, if you're currently squatting in a house in an abandoned, soon-to-be-demolished housing estate on the outskirts of Manchester, vaguely near a Co-op shop, you probably want to _move_. Like, now. Meryl gave us some sort of subtle hint about sending some people down to check the area out._

_From: EmailsToMyself Gmail .com_

_To: EmailsToMyself Gmail .com_

_(Sent on Thursday 8__th__ April, 6:18pm)_

_Anna and Dan_

_Well, it was lovely of you to warn us, dearest, really. We truly appreciate it. Only... we didn't get it until _after_ the whole thing got blown to high hell. Don't worry, though- a _family friend_ called and warned us just in time. We're all fine and dandy, camping out at the same friends' house. Said friends say hi._

_From: EmailsToMyself Gmail .com_

_To: EmailsToMyself Gmail .com_

_(Sent on Thursday 8__th__ April, 6:27pm)_

_Emma_

_Give them a hug from Arron, Gabby and I!_

_From: EmailsToMyself Gmail .com_

_To: EmailsFromMyself Gmail .com_

_(Sent on Thursday 8__th__ April, 6:30pm)_

_That was the most pointlessly short email ever to exist_

_From: EmailsToMyself Gmail .com_

_To: EmailsFromMyself Gmail .com_

_(Sent on Thursday 8__th__ April, 6:38pm)_

_Anna_

_Well you can talk you awkward fucker! Which one of you sick bastards didn't put their name on that ruddy email?!_

_F__rom: EmailsToMyself Gmail .com_

_To: EmailsFromMyself Gmail .com_

_(Sent on Thursday 8__th__ April, 6:45pm)_

_Emma_

_Ok, this is getting slightly ridiculous. Let's stop now._

_Please don't reply to this, otherwise it'll never stop_

_From: EmailsToMyself Gmail .com_

_To: EmailsToMyself Gmail .com_

_(Sent on Thursday 8__th__ April, 6:50pm)_

_Anna_

_Your wish is my command!_

_(whoops, I probably shouldn't send this then... well screw that shit)_

_From: SPN5EVA Gmail .com_

_To: EmailsToMyself Gmail .com_

_(Sent on Friday 9__th__ April, 11:35am)_

_Karlie here bitches!_

_So, I was reliably informed yesterday that I was sorely missed by everyone. Well, I've missed you two. (But I've missed the nice food, company and central heating more, but I have missed you)._

_So, I feel the need to give you all an update._

_Life: sucky, stuck with annoying people, especially this bitch called O'Pars. However, in the time I have been away, I've managed to burn down another six houses. Anyone proud of me? Of course you all are. Also, Andrew? You researched that case yet?_

_Food: KFC every other day. Life is good._

_So Anna dearest, and Dan, what exactly did you asswipes need from me again? Andrew was being annoyingly vague, since he clearly had no clue_ what_ you wanted. Let me know sometime, otherwise I ain't helping you sons of bitches. I've got better shit to do. Like introduce my poor, poor deprived friends to awesome TV shows that you lot _clearly_ don't appreciate nearly enough as you should._

_Karlie out_

_From: EmailsToMyself Gmail .com_

_To: SPN5EVA Gmail .com, EmailsToMyself Gmail .com_

_(Sent on Friday 9__th__ April, 1:22pm)_

_Anna&Dan here_

_And Karlie? Was that email address designed to _deliberately _make a point about a certain TV show you're obsessed with. Because, I would like to point out that Dan and I were still totally up to watching that shit! It was just that the others all chickened out on us, and there was a thunderstorm going on at the time... And now we kinda have better things to do with our lives than cry over the 'feels' that 'Death's Door' gave us._

_So, what we need you to do?_

_Is there any way to upload all the Dasakota information onto an online file-sharing thing, and then give us access to it? We need to double check some stuff on it. Will let you know what later._

_From: SPN5EVA Gmail .com_

_To: EmailsToMyself Gmail .com_

_(Sent on Friday 9__th__ April, 1:46)_

_There you go you ungrateful bitches_

_Attachments – _

_DASAKOTAFILES .docx_

_WTF Is this shit?! .ppt_

_Oooh, this might be important .docx_

_Important crappy stuff .docx_

_Why do you even need this shit .docx_

_Hey look, another .ppt_

_Ok, I'm officially bored now .ppt_

_Aaaaaaand now for a bar chart or six! .xlsx_

_Neeeeaaaaarrrlllllyyyy done .docx_

_Look at the funny picture of a cat cos it's funny =) .jpeg_

_From: EmailsToMyself Gmail .com_

_To: SPN5EVA Gmail .com, EmailsToMyself Gmail .com_

_(Sent on Friday 9__th__ April, 1:58pm)_

_Thank you Karlie dearest, Dan and I much appreciate it._

_Now, we're going to crack on and sort out this shit. We will be back as soon as possible with as much factual interesting shit as possible_

_Until then-_

_Bye suckers- enjoy the funny pictures!_

_Attachments –_

_SpongeBobSquarePants .jpeg_

_Harry Plopper .jpeg_

_Ooh! Look, cute picture of a cat .jpeg_

_Hey look, Karlie, a picture of that freaky long-haired dude from that show you love so much .jpeg_

_And a picture of the other dude who looks considerably hotter –sorry, Dan, I can't help but admire!- than the long-hai... .jpeg_

_Apparently they call the long-haired guy 'Moose' .jpeg_

_Karlie... these people are weird... .jpeg_

_Oh, look, here's that weird guy with a _

_LOOK AT THE ADORABLE BUNNY RABIT! .jpeg_

_Shakira vs Voldemort .jpeg_

_Look, I found Sybil! (haha, just kidding, it's really Dr Hamsterviel) (you know, from Lilo and Stitch?!) .jpeg_

_WHY DO PEOPLE ON THIS SHOW LIKE SATAN?! .jpeg_

_WHY DO THEY ALSO LIKE... no, actually, just saw a gif-set of Death being sassy and BAMF. I see why he is loved by all .jpeg_

_Karlie... I don't understand this show .jpeg_

_Karlie... I need to watch Supernatural .jpeg_

_I hate you Karlie .jpeg_

* * *

><p>Chapter 31<p>

Peter rubbed his eyes tiredly and blinked several times at the screen in front of him. He had been up for more hours than he could care to count, but since his already massive workload had been practically doubled by the arrival of two high-ups from London, this hadn't exactly been unusual recently. The two who had come up were there to investigate the Michael Simons/Francis Codge mishap. Apparently, they hadn't been satisfied with Commander Karp's preliminary report, and had wanted to see for themselves what had gone wrong. It gave Peter a small sense of satisfaction, knowing that Karp was under a lot of strain from London, after all the idiot had done to screw things up lately. Another plus was that the two agents had decided to leave Peter alone after the first day- they weren't going to put him under surveillance again.

Unfortunately, Karp, sensing that his career was going downhill after a backload of bad decisions, was trying to do everything in his power to drag Michael down with him, trying to blame him for every failed operation he could. Peter could personally attest that four of the last six accusations Karp had levelled at Michael were completely untrue, as the two of them had been on missions either on the other side of the country or out of the country entirely.

Sighing, Peter massaged his temples and checked the clock on the wall in front of him. It was five o'clock in the morning. He groaned and glanced back at his computer, before sighing, locking it and standing up to get coffee. There was no way he was going to finish this latest batch of paperwork today without coffee, and the sooner he finished, the sooner he could go home and sleep. There was no way in hell he was staying here for another day at work, getting papers and assignments shoved at him left, right and centre. With Michael/Francis gone, he had no work partner again, so he couldn't be cleared to go out on the field any time soon, which was fine with him, but it meant that he got everyone else's paperwork as well as his own. Lazy buggers.

Peter moved sluggishly through the corridors until he found the main kitchen. It probably should have been some sort of warning that they actually had a fully-stocked kitchen at their headquarters. Maybe what was more disturbing was the whole cupboard dedicated to various types of tea and coffee. Peter grabbed a mug from another cupboard and boiled the kettle, hoping to get back to his office without meeting anyone else, since he wasn't sure his brain could handle conversation right now, and he was already feeling antisocial. The early hour would probably work to his advantage, but there were always a few people who had just as much paperwork as him, and then there were the people who worked nights. Or early mornings. Luckily for Peter, he didn't have to face anyone on his walk back.

Sipping his coffee, Peter unlocked his computer again, and stared at whatever he had just been working on, before double checking his To Do list. Apparently, this document was the last one. He could almost taste the freedom in his way-too-hot coffee. Until he started rereading the last few paragraphs and realised that only one in about every third sentence actually made sense. He glared at the computer and sighed, beginning the slow, tedious process of trying to figure out what he had actually been trying to say.

Two hours, three cups of coffee, a cup of tea and a packet of Malted Milks later, Peter had given up. He no longer cared if his report made a single bit of sense. He was exhausted and hadn't slept in twenty-five hours. He was going home, and Commander Karp would just have to deal. Grouchily, he printed off the document, shut down his computer, and headed out, locking his office door behind him.

Most agents would only just be arriving for work now, so he figured that the easiest way to find Karp would be to ask The Spider. Sure enough, Sid was, as usual, hanging about in the corridor, speaking with some other agents- Trent and Stockton, Peter's caffeine fuelled, sleep deprived brain told him.

Sid spotted him and waved him over cheerfully, "Peter! I didn't see you come in! You look... wrecked, if I'm perfectly honest,"

Peter grimaced, "I haven't actually gone home yet. I'm shoving these files at Karp, then fleeing before someone else with files spots me,"

Sid nodded sympathetically, "You looking for Karp, then?"

"You have any idea where he is?" Peter asked, hopeful that he wouldn't have to run around the whole building looking for the Commander. Another thought struck him and, reluctantly, he asked, "Do you know if he's even in yet?"

Peter didn't care that he would lose his job, or possibly get charged with manslaughter; if Karp was still lying in bed asleep Peter was going to strangle the man.

The Spider grinned, "Don't worry- he just arrived. He was heading towards his office last time I saw him, and probably won't have gone far from there, since those two agents from London looked like they were going to hassle him some more,"

Peter couldn't help the small, satisfied smirk that appeared on his face. It looked like Karp was in for a worse day than Peter's had been so far- a small, yet unexpected bonus.

"Thanks, Spider," Peter said, heading off, "I'll see you around, just hopefully not anytime today," He paused for a second, and turned back, "How's your head, by the way? Is it feeling any better?" He asked sympathetically.

The Spider made a face, "I'm ok. I get the occasional headache, but I'm not entirely sure that it's not from putting up with these lot all day," He joked, waving vaguely at the steadily filling up corridor.

Peter grinned, "Well, I'll take that as my queue to leave," He gave an offhand wave as he started towards Commander Karp's office.

He reached the office and found, to his relief, that Karp was still in there, along with the two London agents. Peter knocked on the door and poked his head around, "I've got a file to be checked and cleared," he announced, holding up his wodge of paper.

Karp nodded, looking harassed, "Put it on the pile over there, with all of the other papers," he said.

Peter glanced over to where Karp was gesturing, and saw a stack of files reaching almost to the desk. He tried not to feel too happy that Karp was having an even harder time than he was, since that was generally viewed as childish and stupid, and was generally looked down upon in adult society. However, Peter was tired and nobody was perfect, so it failed anyway.

He dunked his papers on top, then backed out of the office, and fled for the car park before he had to do anything else.

Driving home took a little more effort than usual, since he was trying to stay awake. He was beginning to regret not making himself another cup of coffee before he left, but realised that, by this point, it probably wouldn't have helped.

By the time he arrived home, Carron and Danny had already headed off to school and work, so it was just Anna and Dan in the house. He didn't dare see if either were awake- Anna had once done something to his laptop which made it play the Noddy theme tune nonstop every time he turned it on, just because he'd woken her up before nine. He had no intention of repeating _that_ humiliating experience again...

* * *

><p>Chapter 32~Anna<p>

"So, we've officially got the Dasakota files off Karlie's laptop," I announced smugly to Peter, in between mouthfuls of chicken sandwich.

"You what?" Peter asked, looking exhausted, "Sorry, I couldn't hear you because of the ridiculous amount of food you've got in your mouth,"

"Bite me," I told him, before working on chewing rather than talking. Peter had gotten up about ten minutes earlier and he still didn't look awake. Apparently he'd been up all night, and hadn't gotten in until _after_ Carron and Danny had gone out. Ouch.

"He has a point, Anna- I'd rather not see the entire contents of your half-eaten meal," Dan made a face.

I swallowed my mouthful of sandwich, "You two are just jealous of my multitasking skills,"

"I'm sure," Dan snorted scathingly, "Whatever you say, Anna,"

"Anyway," I turned my attention back to Peter, "Karlie gave us all the Dasakota files she had off that laptop of hers, just a few minutes ago. It should have some relevant stuff somewhere on it- although lord knows I found none when I was looking through it before,"

"Well... The first half of that sentence sounded mildly reassuring," Peter shrugged optimistically.

I finished off my first sandwich and grabbed my laptop from the floor, opening it, "Yup. Keep up that optimism, Peter, you'll need it when we've been looking for eight hours straight and haven't found a single relevant piece of information."

I clicked on the first document Karlie had sent, to see how much relevance it had, which wasn't much, judging by the document title; "Drugs Export and Import Records- Devon".

"Nope, not that one," I announced almost immediately, as a page full of numbers appeared, "Onwards," I muttered under my breath as I clicked the next.

"How do you know it wasn't that one?" Dan demanded accusingly, "You barely looked at it!"

"Dan, I'm looking for a list of names, not numbers," I told him, tutting.

"But how do you know there wasn't a list of names _under_ all of those numbers?" Dan asked curiously.

"Because I can see the future, Dan." I told him.

"Really?" Dan raised his eyebrow.

Peter sighed, leaning back in his chair and muttering, "This one should be good," under his breath. He'd seen me in one of these arguments way too many times. Evidentially, he'd decided he was too tired today to bother stopping the bound-to-ensue argument/debate.

"You're gonna ask me what you're going to do next," I said smugly.

"Wow, Anna. That's all the proof I need I guess," Dan rolled his eyes, "So, since you can see the future, can you tell us exactly _which _document has the information we need on it?"

"The future is not always clear. Its ways are mysterious and elusive sometimes," I hedged.

"Right. Naturally," Dan nodded sceptically, unimpressed.

I leaned forward and attempted to look serious, "People assume that time is a strict pro... progression! Of cause to... to the other one of those things, but _actually_ from a non-linear, and another descriptive word starting with non, viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly timey wimey... stuff!"

Dan crossed his arms, still not convinced by my frankly _amazing_ acting, "Did you seriously just quote Doctor Who at me, Anna?"

"Nooooooo," I said, drawing out the word.

The look on Dan's face made me reconsider things slightly, "Ok, so maybe I can't see the future, but I _am_ all-knowing!"

"Fine, what's the highest mountain in England?"

"... Please wait three seconds," I got Google up and typed it in, as Peter's head fell into his hands and he groaned in despair, "Scafell Pike,"

"... You pronounced it wrong... Its _scar fell_," Dan pointed out.

"I'm still all-knowing,"

"Name eight capital cities,"

"London, Paris, Athens, Rome, Cardiff, Dublin, Tokyo um... Washington DC, Mexico City, Warsaw, Vienna-"

"That's eleven," Peter interrupted resignedly.

"... I lost track,"

"I but if you were all-knowing, you would've known how many you had listed!" Dan protested immediately.

"Lies!" I cried overdramatically.

"Ok then, name ten mountains in the Lake District," Dan challenged.

I smirked at him, and brought Google back up, "Scafell Pike, Scafell, Green Gable, Great Gable, Catbells, Skiddaw, Little Man, Maiden Moor, Blencathra and Helvellyn,"

Dan paused for a second, narrowing his eyes at me, "You used the internet, didn't you?"

"No. No I did not. How dare you accuse me of such a thing?!"

"... Six James Bond movies,"

"Man with the Golden Gun, Goldfinger, You Only Live Twice, Diamonds Are Forever, Live and Let Die and A View to Kill," All without Google I might add.

"Batman's true identity?"

"Bruce Wayne,"

"Superman's weakness?"

"Kryptonite,"

"The Doctor's home planet?"

"Gallifrey,"

"The Dalek's home planet?"

"Skaro,"

"..." Dan frowned, evidentially trying to think of a really hard question. Then he started grinning, "The Slitheen's home planet,"

"Raxacoricofallapatorius," I smirked at him.

"...The twin planet of... the planet just mentioned,"

"Clom,"

Dan scowled "The four marauders,"

"Prongs, Padfoot, Wormtail and Moony, or James Potter, Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew and Remus Lupin," My grin widened, "Still doubt me?"

"Yes. Yes I do..."

"There is no question I cannot answer," I cackled evilly.

"What's your computer password?" Peter asked suddenly.

I scowled and tried to come up with a decent reply, because there was no way in hell I trusted those two morons with _my _computer password. Dan's frown transformed from suspicious, this-was-a-joke-but-shit-just-got-serious to surprise, that-was-brilliant-how-the-hell-did-I-not-think-of-that, to ultimately failing to suppress laughter. After three minutes I decided I'd officially missed the Official Boundary For Sarcastic Retorts That Don't Sound Pathetic/Desperate.

"... And I think we can officially say that Anna is _not_ all knowing, and can now get back to the topic at hand," Peter said finally.

"Technically I knew the last one!" I objected.

"But how do we know you do? You could just be making it up," Dan smiled smugly.

I glared and crossed off anything I'd opened, before logging off. A few seconds later, I logged on again.

"There. I know my password, you have proof," I told them, "I am still all-knowing,"

Dan shook his head, "Nah, I don't think that counts, Anna. I mean, you might have cheated somehow, without us knowing,"

"Dan does have a point there, Anna," Peter sighed, "I think we're just going to have to call the internet almost all knowing, and you can be a mildly intelligent teenager,"

I narrowed my eyes at the two of them, not ready to give in graciously just yet. Dan and Peter, however, had already moved on, "So, how exactly is a list of names going to help us? The spy in MI6 isn't going to be stupid about this- they're going to have a fake name, or something,"

Dan shrugged, "I asked her that earlier, she said I was missing the point,"

"Yes, the two of you are missing the point by several miles. However, I will graciously forgive you both, since I know that Peter stupid from sleep deprivation and Dan is just stupid in general-" I ignored Dan's mildly offended "Hey!" and continued, "My dad _knew _who the spy was. He also probably knows the _real _name of said spy. He might even have _told you the name only a few days ago. _But, no, you two are _completely_ right. There is no possible way to move forwards from this conclusion. We can't do anything more with this line of investigation. We should just go away and brainstorm a few more ideas, and discuss it later, over a cup of tea and some biscuits."

Peter frowned, "I thought we agreed that an investigation into the name was null and void- we couldn't find anything on his name online, which was what we were already expecting, considering that he worked for Dasakota, who probably wanted to cover his tracks."

Technically what Peter had said was true- we'd looked and nothing had been nice enough to show its face. We consequently gave up, because we're lazy buggers and it wasn't going anywhere. However, the situation had changed since then, even if no one else could apparently see that.

"You're missing the really, really, painfully obvious Peter. Please stop being ignorant, it really isn't a good look for you and, personally, it makes me want to cry. I can only deal with so much stupid," I said flatly.

Peter and Dan narrowed their eyes at me. I plastered an innocent look on my face and shrugged. Dan poked me on the arm, glaring.

"What even was the dudes name? I can't remember that far back," Dan mumbled thoughtfully after a few mintues.

"It was... S...ssss...ssssomething Summers?!" Peter said, making it sound more like a question than a statement.

"Well... The enormity of the help you just gave me has overwhelmed us all Peter," I told him sarcastically.

"Don't be mean, Anna, or I'll kick you out," Peter retorted.

"You can't. We have squatters' rights," I replied smugly.

"...I'm not sure that even applies to you two," Peter mulled over that for a few minutes while I decided to ignore the others in my search for The List Of Names.

"Anna, do not annoy Peter, please. I don't want to end up sleeping outside tonight," Dan stage-whispered.

"I repeat, squatters rights. We are untouchable!"

Dan prodded me in the arm, "No we're not. Well, you're not, anyway,"

I poked him in the face, "No, you're right, we're not. I blame you for this Dan,"

Peter just looked at us like he was only just realising how weird we were, "I'm just going to go find my phone and get that text with the name on. You can explain how it has any more value now than it did before," He said, backing out of the room.

Dan looked at me and shrugged. I grinned and went back to the laptop.

"AHA!" I shrieked a few moments later, making Dan squeak in a _very_ manly way, "Found it!"

"Give a guy a heart attack why don't you Anna! Christ!" Dan groaned, hand over his heart.

"Ah, Dan, my precious little munchkin," I began, shaking my head and smirking. I had a witty, hilarious, yet no doubt withering and sarcastic comment and was just about to follow up my previous sentence with said awesome comment, when Peter appeared again.

"Yup, found the phone," He called out.

"God damn it Peter! You ruined my awesome follow up comment!" I groaned.

Peter rolled his eyes at me, but I was otherwise ignored, "He's called Simon Summers, apparently," He said, sitting back down in his chair and crossing his arms, "Now explain why the name is now useful,"

I sighed and turned my attention back to Dan and Peter, and away from the List O' Names, "We agreed that the name was null and void because Dasakota would've covered up their tracks. They'd have deleted and gotten rid of any trace of Simon Summers out there, so that no one else could get the information. However, why would Dasakota want to erase his name from their own files? After all, they probably weren't exactly expecting us to find a laptop with all the information on, were they?"

Peter and Dan paused for a second, slowly beginning to understand.

"... I'm slightly worried by how long it took me to realise that..." Dan said after a few seconds, "No, in fact, I am very worried by that,"

I patted him on the back and nodded sympathetically, "General stupidity'll do that to you. It's not your fault Dan,"

Dan whacked me gently over the back of the head, "Watch it you, or I'll claim you kidnapped me when you left campus and let Meryl kill you then cook you and serve you to Sybil,"

"... You are incredibly clever Dan. You're intellectual prowess is truly inspiring, and my own intelligence pales in comparison to yours,"

"... better," Dan nodded, after a few seconds of consideration.

Peter cleared his throat, "Leaving aside that incredibly weird conversation, you think you could, you know, find out how our spy is, anytime soon?"

I grinned and brought up the little search-the-document thing that I have fallen deeply in love with over the years, and typed in 'Simon Summers'.

"Peter, I thought you'd never ask," I smirked, clicking enter and faking a mini drumroll as the results loaded.

* * *

><p>Well, until next month guys!<p>

**runs off cackling evilly**


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